


Sons and Daughters

by rantingdude



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout - Fandom, Fallout 2, Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: American History, Angst, Anti-Hero, Anti-Imperialism, Drug Use, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, F/M, Female Friendship, Female Protagonist, Female-Centric, Fictional Religion & Theology, Gen, Gender Roles, Heavy Angst, Heavy Drinking, Implied Sexual Content, Major Original Character(s), Moral Ambiguity, Morally Ambiguous Character, Non-Linear Narrative, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Non-Sexual Slavery, Original Character Death(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Religious Cults, Sexual Slavery, Slavery, Slow Burn, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-28 10:37:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 88
Words: 151,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20777186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rantingdude/pseuds/rantingdude
Summary: In the American southwest there's no rain, so they water their crops with blood.  This is the story of Caesar's Legion and The Daughters of Hecate, told from within and from without, the trail of death and destruction they left in their wake. Coldly remote and achingly personal fanfiction for the unreleased original Fallout 3, codenamed Van Buren.





	1. 80

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we meet Julia; a flash-forward

80

Julia lined up his head in her crosshairs. Just a solitary raider, maybe an 80, not worth the cost of the bullet. She was going to kill him, as there was never a time she didn't feel like killing something, but she shouldered her gun, a massive sniper rifle built to tear through the hull of a tank. She opted for her hunting shotgun, a weapon she kept for close kills. She liked the visceral thrill of the scattershot tearing through flesh and bone, she loved the splatter of blood on her coat and face.

Her first shot grazed his head, a calculated clip that a more seasoned warrior might recognize, but the 80 took the bait and charged with tire iron at the ready. She feigned another wild shot just so she could see him self-satisfiedly grin. He was almost on top of her when she leveled the gun with calm precision and blew his face inwards. She smiled slowly as the droplets of warm blood cooled on her chin.

She dug through the rags and strips of old tire the 80 had been wearing for armor, searching gingerly for drugs. She taught her girls caution with a made-up story about a Daughter who accidentally pricked herself on a junkie's psycho needle and died of an autoimmune deficiency disease. Although the story was made-up she actually had seen many people die that way. She'd personally started a clean needle initiative, one of her proudest accomplishments. She didn't have to worry about shit like that in Legion turf, though, for a variety of reasons.

She came away with two syringes of Med-X, which she considered a good score for a single raider. Avata followed the sound of the shotgun, more out of curiosity than concern.

“Just a raider. I think it's an 80,” Julia gave a swift kick to the headless corpse.

“I don't think we're far enough north for the 80s,” Avata scanned the landscape hungrily, “Think there are more?”

Julia furrowed her brow. “I'm pretty sure we're near Elko. Near enough.” They'd been traveling more than six weeks, on a contract from the Malpais Legate to harass settlements. They were to pave the way for Caesar's glorious Nevada campaign, but Julia was skeptical that would ever come to pass. Looking around she couldn't understand the appeal. She supposed megalomania allowed a man to find beauty in whatever wasn't his. “Near enough for the 80s.”

It had been a rough road. It turned out that there was very little in the northern Nevada wasteland, and they were beginning to run out of resources. The vast plain between Elko and Ouroboros was a hellish purgatory. Julia was beginning to harbor paranoid delusions that the contract was some plot on her life. The Legate was a brutal man but he lacked for subtlety, if he was going to try and kill them he'd make it a brutal one-man campaign of unabashed warfare. Perhaps she angered the Goddess somehow? Had the Goddess finally realized, and in bitterness lashed out by sending Julia and her squad on a suicide mission? Maybe the Goddess had used her powers to figure out which among her flock was the wolf. A monster. A creature twisted by hate and malice and an unsatisfiable bloodlust.

Julia was being ridiculous, of course. Obviously the Goddess knew which among her Daughters was the most hateful, most vicious, most unstoppably cruel and murderous. The most cunning and unscrupulous. The most brutal and cunning Daughter was the Goddess' personal lieutenant. Julia Aram of the Twisted Hairs. There was no one better.

“We've secured camp, commander,” Marceline approached Julia and Avata, “We're about seven miles from Elko, according to Tiegan,” Marce smiled maliciously, “We found a weapons cache,” she held up a red and blue Interstate 80 sign and her smile grew wider and darker. The three of them returned to camp, to rest before the real fighting began in earnest tomorrow.


	2. Firsts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Firsts

Firsts  
When Julia was eight years old, she drowned a boy who was a year younger than her. She did it just to see if she could. She told the tribe leader he fell in.


	3. A Pack of Wolves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We meet the Dead Souls

A Pack of Wolves  
Mortuus Anima, the dead soul. It was he who killed the warlord Tarsuus, who burned The Serpent to ash, who conquered the Devines, who grinned as Pueblo burned. Those under him were called the dead souls and Caesar himself praised their viciousness. Dead Soul's men contained the Legion's only ghoul legionaries, savage creatures and semi-feral as was befitting the dead souls' contubernia.  
Mortuus was considered decanus only in a nominal sense. In the hierarchy he held the rank of decanus, and commanded his contubernia under a centurion. His men certainly gave him great respect, and followed him wherever he led them. He was bestowed authority over them by the authority over himself. But to say he was a leader, a commander was absurd. He could lead or command no more than an animal, a particularly savage animal. The Legion pointed him in the direction of things to be killed, even let him hand pick his own coterie of other savage animals, but to them he was little more than a creature bred and bought for the purposes of killing, and it reflected in his every manner.  
When the dead souls took on the warlord Tarsuus, it was a frontal assault, straightforward and uncomplicated. They lost men but at a ratio of nearly five to one, their attacks so brutal and swift. Mortuus himself wielded only a piece of lead pipe and crushed a dozen skulls. The sounds of the legionaries' battle calls, the hellish howls of the ghoul legionaries broke the spirit of the defenders, and they surrendered before the dead souls' bloodlust was satisfied.  
Perhaps if Tarsuus had been a more inspiring leader, maybe if he had encouraged more loyalty from his personal militia more of them would have been willing to fall for him. Perhaps if the dead souls' had more opportunity to sate their base desires to destroy and kill and maim, if during the battle they had been given more opportunity to sate their lust for carnage, more shattered skulls for their own satisfaction, then maybe the warlord Tarsuus would have been spared. Perhaps if he hadn't spent the entire battle sitting on his ass on a throne built of garbage, assured that this fight was a little skirmish no different from the other raider skirmishes his compound often faced, despite the fact that he was warned well in advance that the Legion wasn't just another raiding party by the small townships he used to extort money from, perhaps if he had been at the balustrade commanding his warriors with bravery and courage, well he certainly wouldn't have won but then perhaps the dead souls' wouldn't have seen fit to make an example of him. Perhaps if he hadn't pissed off his most skilled warrior, a former Brotherhood of Steel soldier whose deadly aim with a magnum afforded Tarsuus the luxury to grow complacent, by making an aggressive, entitled pass at her less than a week before so that after killing two dead souls with her entire chamber and realizing that this was the most powerful enemy the warlord had ever faced she made a sensible escape rather than staying and defending and with her skill alone possibly turning the tide of the battle... perhaps Tarsuus would have lived.  
As it stood when his defenders surrendered, the dead souls marched into his hall, ignored his protests, grabbed him and dragged him outside to his own courtyard and threw him down into the dirt. Then they wordlessly removed to the edges of the courtyard, forming a circle. Tarsuus saw his men and women at the mercy of the Legion, saw the destruction to his fortifications, one tower still engulfed in flames smelling rich of burning rubber and trash. He rose from the dirt and saw him. Mortuus Anima. He wore unique armor, all black leather topped with the legionary shoulder-pads, and a white cowboy hat that cast his face in shadow. Tarsuus wasn't a small man, certainly, but the figure plodding assuredly through the ruined archways of the compound's former gate was massive, a brutish walking tank. He wrapped his fists in tape and cracked his knuckles hungrily. There was nowhere for Tarsuus to run from this giant black mass of muscle and hatred, but to the warlord's credit he had no intention of running. It was a poor choice, to stand and fight, but the warlord didn't think of anything else.  
Mortuus let the warlord have the first hit. Tarsuus charged him with a blow to the face, which the decanus did not react to. Instead, he grabbed Tarsuus by the shoulders and kneed him in the stomach, twice. While the warlord was doubled over Mortuus punched him in the face. The smack of fist against cheek echoed. The decanus kneed the warlord again, this time lifting him off the ground. The warlord fell, and the decanus kicked him viciously. The decanus felt the warlord's ribs splinter through his leather boot. He picked the warlord up by the shoulders and led him to the wall, which he threw the man into repeatedly. The warlord stumbled backwards, vision blurred and blood trickling down his weathered face. The decanus broke his nose with a left-handed punch. He fell to the ground and Mortuus pounced. When he looked up, he could see the decanus smiling. His big brown eyes were wide with an unrestrained glee. He gripped the warlord's face in his hands, oblivious to the man's desperate attempts to push him off. He slowly drove his thumb into the warlord's eye, deeper and deeper as he screamed. He dug around in the socket, and then did the same to the other eye. He felt the fight drain from his opponent's body. He got up and began to walk away, seemingly leaving in disgust, only to turn around and finish the warlord off by stomping on his face until all that remained was dirt muddied by blood. The Dead Soul never fought without killing.  
He very rarely gave orders. After killing Tarsuus, the Dead Soul merely walked away, leaving his unofficial second-in-command, Reave, to order the dead souls to round up prisoners and return to camp. The slaves would gather supplies. Reave always spoke for Mortuus, as though they had some special connection, an invisible bond which allowed Reave to give Mortuus' orders, even though Mortuus almost never spoke to him or anyone. Although it wasn't ever difficult to guess what Mortuus wanted done. March, kill, or guard, they anticipated his every theoretical command and followed them to the letter. A pack of wolves, not men. Animals for the legion.


	4. The Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We meet Athena

The Fire  
Athena loved the Crazy Horns. She loved life among them. It wasn't just that they deferred to her judgement in all matters. She really did care for them, as though they were her own people. She taught children how to paint, she counseled young couples, she taught them how to braid and dread their hair. Her proudest moment was by far the time she saved a life.  
Longhorn was not the strongest, or the fastest, but he was the bravest hunter among the Crazy Horns. He wasn't stupid brave, he knew how to pick his targets. He wasn't stupid enough to target anything more dangerous than a hunter gecko. On a hunting party trip by the Great Salt Lake he overexerted himself, though, thinking he could take on three geckos at once. He was nearly torn limb from limb, saved at the last second by the other hunters using poison and spoiling the meat. He couldn't be moved, they were going to leave him in the wasteland to die. They even talked about killing him themselves, as a mercy. He convinced them not to, that he didn't want to be killed by his tribesmen. So they left him, amid poison gecko meat and with only a single granite club.  
They returned to the tribe and told everyone the story when they asked what happened to Longhorn. Athena had never had much connection to him, she couldn't even recall what he looked like amid the faces of all the other hunters in the tribe, but something welled up inside her. A fire that compelled her to ask the hunters where they left him. They begged her not to go, told her it was too late, way too late to do anything to help him. They even physically tried to stop her, before she reminded them of her power. They withdrew in fear, but begged her to take a few of them with her, for protection. She agreed and they went straight back to Longhorn.  
They found him mostly dead and half-crazed. In desperation he had eaten some of the poisoned gecko meat, and drank a little sea-water. It would take a miracle to keep him alive for even an hour after they arrived. And yet, Athena saved him. She hadn't even come with adequate medical supplies, but she was able to use the local flora to save him. He lost a leg and a hand, but in a week he was strong enough to be carried back to the village on a stretcher made of gecko leather and carried by the other hunters. They returned to the Crazy Horns triumphant, and from that point on Athena was the matriarch of the tribe.


	5. Bad People

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we find out who the bad people are

Bad People  
Athena had worn the busted slave collar for so long she'd forgotten it was even there, the old familiar weight around her neck just more tribal jewelry. It had grown to be just as much a part of her as her fingers or toes. Once there was a time where every morning she woke up screaming, clawing at the metal and crying. That time was long past before she came to the Crazy Horns.  
When she arrived none of them asked her about it. They assumed it was decorative, adornment and luxurious adornment at that. All the Crazy Horns worshiped Athena like she taught them to worship the Goddess. Every aspect of her was fetishized, from her dusky skin to her knotted dreads to the AEP7 laser pistol slung at her hip. The Crazy Horns were particularly infatuated by the laser pistol, for one reason or another they rarely if ever saw any energy weapons. Athena assumed it was ignorance, ignorance of the world as was and ignorance of the world as before. It was not surprising to her to use energy weapons. Athena had encountered more than a few enemies who wielded laser pistols and plasma rifles. The Crazy Horns were impressed by the technological advancements; in fact they were awed and terrified by something as simple as Athena's weaponry, despite Athena's almost total disdain of her pistol. To her it represented a culture of fear, a culture of paranoia that preferred military action to understanding. Athena did not support that, a society of fear. Yet the Crazy Horns were inspired by her weaponry to create a culture of the laser. The “dancing light” they called it. They begged her to fire it into the air so they could see the light shoot upwards and disappear into the stars.  
She was not impressed by this display of ignorance by the tribe. She wondered how had they not come to fear and hate laser weaponry. She was slightly resentful, with each shot she obligingly made for the Crazy Horns she began to bitterly wonder why no one had ever shot these people with a laser rifle. She had learned to fear and respect laser weapons from a very young age, when her family was attacked by raiders and one of them was carrying a laser assault rifle. She saw her eldest brother disintegrate to a pile of smoking ash in front of her very eyes. She would never be entranced by the flashing of the weapon's beam, and it disturbed her that these people she considered her new family were so naïve.  
Athena blamed it on the Canaanites. The Mormons had a strong grip on the area, defending local tribes. Sheltering them from the true dangers of the waste. Thanks to New Canaan the Crazy Horns hadn't encountered a raider attack in years. Occasionally a convoy would arrive, with supplies for trade. They'd bring missionaries, too, preaching scripture to the tribe. Athena didn't know what they were talking about, but it sounded like a threat to her mission. For months she would hide from Mormon convoys, planning her trips back to Ouroboros in conjunction with the missionaries' visits. It was an encounter with a child, a child of the tribe named Too Much, which inspired her to take action.  
They were by the stream, Athena was teaching the boy numbers with rocks. He wasn't paying much attention, drifting in and out of the lecture, playing with the rocks instead of counting them. Occasionally his eyes flicked to her neck. She could feel the question coming.  
“Why do you wear that necklace?” he asked innocently.  
“I can't take it off,” She bent down to his level to demonstrate. She pulled at the slave collar, demonstrated the mangled lock.  
“Why'd you put it on?”  
“I didn't put it on. Someone put it on me. Some bad people made me wear it and now I can't get it off,” she tugged at the collar with more urgency. The metal bit into the back of her neck.  
“Bad people?” Too Much asked, clearly unfamiliar with the concept.  
“Bad people,” she instinctively placed a hand on her gun, “The world is full of bad people, people who want to hurt, and kill, and make people their slaves. Force them to do things they wouldn't do,” she elaborated, “Put them in cages, tie them up.”  
The young boy wrinkled his nose. “I don't think you're telling the truth. I think you're making stuff up.”  
That was when Athena realized it was time. She was here to educate these tribals, and she was going to educate them. She was going to teach them the true face of the wasteland. She was going to teach them fear. She was going to teach them respect, of her and her pistol.  
It was fairly easy to convince the tribe to ambush the New Canaanite convoy. They believed everything she told them, that they were being poisoned by the traders, being poisoned in body and in mind. It was a fairly simple matter to convince them to rid themselves of this corrupting influence.  
They killed about half the convoy, and the other half surrendered. They ransacked the supplies, forced the remaining New Canaanites to their knees. Athena spoke to the tribe.  
“I come from a tribe, myself. A different tribe than the Crazy Horns, or the Canaanites. I come from a tribe of conquerors,” she told them. She executed each of the Canaanites, one at a time. Dissolved each and every one to a smoking pile of ash.


	6. Night Shift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Julia shoots a ghoul

Night Shift  
Ev thought Julia was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen in his life. She was tiny, black, and had big brown eyes forever in a heavy-lidded weariness which set him off. She had a habit of rolling her eyes at him and making faces he couldn't resist. She was intimidating; she always seemed to know everything about anything and anyone. She made him feel so small when they worked together it made him feel three times as big when they had sex.  
“Hey, you got the night shift?” he caught her sipping coffee outside the emergency response tent.  
“Oh, no, I never get the night shift,” she took a sip from her cup. “I'm way too lucky for that. Just can't sleep is all.”  
“That's probably the coffee,” Ev cracked.  
“You think?” she asked between more sips. That was always how it was with Julia, that little I know something and I'm not telling smile that would piss the other Followers off if it weren't for the fact that she was the best damn doctor out of all of them. It was a wonder to watch her work, cleaning wounds and fighting infections. Although the camp wasn't set up to handle much more than the usual wasteland injuries (bites, scratches, and burns) Julia had demonstrated proficiency in much more advanced medical practices, such as surgery to remove cancerous growths. She was especially skilled at delivering children, which she attributed to years of being an apprentice midwife in her tribe.  
Once Amelia cracked if Julia was the kind of tribal the wasteland produced, there should be more tribals. Julia smiled a little but got very quiet when she said that. Ev didn't need an explanation. He'd heard the news of a particularly powerful band of raiders killing off tribals in the east. Julia carried the weight of tragedy with her, everyone could see it. It helped her relate to the people they helped, although Ev couldn't help but notice she seemed to treat people with the same robotic perfectionism whether she was stitching them up or talking them through PTSD.  
“Anyway who's to say I wouldn't like to help even though it isn't my shift?” Julia smiled. Her teeth lit up the night. Ev was about to say something when there was suddenly a cacophony of chaotic confusion from the camp's gate. There was screaming and wailing, everyone in the whole camp was up. Jacob the head camp guard was waving his pistol around in the air. There was a crowd of doctors and guards headed straight for Ev and Julia.  
“We need to get him strapped down!” Amelia was screaming. “Alec, get the table prepped!”  
Julia and Ev gave the incoming doctors a wide berth. They were all surrounding a struggling figure, a person with a bag on their head. The bag-headed person was fighting fanatically, like an animal. Julia pegged it as rabies, and didn't expect there was anything to be done. The doctors with the help of the guards brought the hooded figure into the tent and forced it onto the table, strapping it down.  
“Patient's name is Edward Wong, prospector,” Alec told everyone as soon as Ed was strapped to the table. “At about noon yesterday he and three other prospectors, Mac, Duff, and Sally, entered one of the underground complexes near Hopeville, and have been missing until Edward was discovered milling near a cave entrance. Subject appears to have been attacked, no gunshot wounds but what appear to be claw marks have left deep gashes in his sides.” Julia observed Edward and noted that he did appear to have been attacked by something, most likely a deathclaw. If deathclaws in the area were infected with rabies it was going to be a big problem. Like an NCR-abandoning-the-area problem. “Patient appears to be in shock.”  
Alec pulled the hood off of Ed and everyone recoiled. The ghoul howled at them, his eyes rolling madly in his sockets. “We need a sedative!” someone yelled in the chaos. Julia grabbed Jacob's pistol from his hand, walked over to Ed and shot him in the face, in between the eyes. She didn't even put down her coffee cup. Suddenly everything was quiet. Julia returned Jacob's gun into his hand, he looked at it blankly like he'd never seen it before in his life.  
“Zombies turn feral,” Julia explained herself to no one in particular, and then walked off. Everyone looked from her to the ghoul she had just shot, now still and lifeless in his straps.  
Ev was shocked. He had never seen Julia weld a weapon before, much less so casually. She had just plucked it out of Jacob's hands without him even noticing. She hadn't even put down her goddamn coffee to kill a man. Ev was beginning to realize he knew even less than he thought he did about her. When he returned to his room she was waiting for him, half naked in his bed.  
“C'mon, Everett, let's fuck,” she writhed seductively in front of him. He could only stare. “Killing always...” she stared into his eyes and bit her finger. “I just love it, y'know,” she gasped and fell backwards in ecstasy. Ev instinctively pulled away. “What?” she noticed, “What? Oh, fuck you!” she got up and zipped up her pants, pulled on her shirt and stormed out. Ev didn't follow her so he didn't know that after she went outside she felt dumb and alone.


	7. Following

Following  
Julia didn't know why the goddess had sent her here; to this place they called a division. To this place they called a place of hope. It was part of the Goddess' mystics, her undefinable knowledge that had her give Julia the task to cross the Mojave into the Divide. She had simply claimed it was a place “of great importance.” A place where the future of the wasteland was to be shaped. Julia supposed that was reason enough to send agents there.  
The Goddess sent Julia in particular, though. She said it was because the Divide was a place “of great importance” not just for the wasteland, but for Julia as well. She didn't know what that meant then, the ominous implications ringing in her ears as she traveled through some of the worst communities she'd ever seen, and she didn't know what it meant now, as she was delicately fiddling with her revolver.  
It was a thing of beauty, an 1851 Colt Navy Cartridge Conversion with a custom cylinder and silver snake grips. A work of art. She hadn't used it since she crossed the Colorado. She'd wrapped it in a piece of cloth and secreted it on her person. She'd decided it was more prudent to not carry a weapon in the Mojave, and she'd been right. When she came to the Divide and met the Followers at Hopeville she'd hidden the cloth bundle with her revolver in a rocky outcropping.  
Coming to Hopeville had been a revelation. It was the first time she'd ever met the New California Republic, and she was awed. She didn't like the NCR any more than she liked any other wasteland army, but she appreciated their power. She knew the Legion was some sick joke, men playing dress-up to bully and terrorize tribes, but the NCR was an honest-to-God nation. A unified peoples who weren't just playing dress-up, who had a government and laws. The NCR made the Legion look like children.  
Even still Julia probably had less love for the NCR than she had for the Legion. With children there was some call for pity, to pity their innocence, to pity their lack of understanding about their actions and the world around them. The Legion was pathetic. The NCR didn't have that excuse. These weren't children without any awareness. They were adults in a savage world, people with responsibilities, and it was obvious they weren't fulfilling these responsibilities. The Legion crawled over the weak, scrambling desperately to get ahead. The NCR stood tall on the weak and powerless, grinding them into the dirt when they could help them up. Just a bunch of rich fucks comfortable in seclusion from a terrible world. Hopeville was the first place Julia saw fat people.  
Yet she found some people, a group of people who she could relate to, people whom she could not dismiss as exploiters or thugs. The Followers of the Apocalypse reminded her of a tribe, but a tribe united not for survival or strength, a tribe united by the desire to above all help. Help those in need; help the weak and the desperate and the sickly. The Followers were what she wished the NCR were, privileged people using their privilege to help, not being content and complacent. Her first assumption was that no-one could be that benevolent. A life in the Arizona wastes had led her to believe that human nature precluded charity and kindness. She believed that there was sinister motivation behind the Follower's actions. It was a natural response, up until then the Goddess and her Daughters were the most benevolent and charitable community she'd ever encountered. Everyone expected something; nobody did anything for nothing, did something just because it was the right thing to do. Yet a week went by and before long Julia felt the creeping innocence and optimism she believed she had left behind a long time ago.  
What at first was just a place to sleep became a home, and she offered to help the Followers. Amelia, a tall woman with an unusual haircut accepted her happily, even before Julia told her she had medical training. Julia half expected Amelia to disregard her, to assume that her 'medical training' was tribal bullshit, rituals passed down from generation to generation and which made a lot of noise but were about as healing as a jab with a sharp stick. In truth, Julia had learned a lot of garbage from the tribe's herbalist; salves which just infected wounds and showy prayers intended to cure serious illnesses. Julia had improved upon her tribe's overall health with her own personal efforts (which included something as simple as cleaning her medical tools), but her medical knowledge had become quite extensive since then, supplemented with help from Circle of Steel medical training and the knowledge of the Goddess Hecate, which surpassed even the pre-war military the Circle learned from. She couldn't tell Amelia about the Goddess, but she could demonstrate her knowledge and to her surprise Amelia let her. Amelia wasn't condescending, she wasn't humoring Julia, and she actually listened and treated her with respect. Julia tossed around a few advanced medical terms and described some procedures step-by-step, she talked with confidence and Amelia put her to work right away. Her implicit faith in Julia was so overwhelming and new that Julia cried after her first day, wept joyfully in private.  
Julia found new reasons to be proud every day. Once, a prospector offered to give her a small fortune for saving her sister's life, and she turned it down without a second thought, telling the woman to give it to Amelia and the Followers, or failing that to give it to someone who needed it. She wore her Follower's coat as a badge of honor. She made friends with the other Followers, she started a relationship with a gentle man who had been born into wealth and had decided to help people.  
It wasn't until the ghoul, until she once again felt the visceral thrill of murder that she realized she was still missing something. That for all the good she had done it wasn't enough.  
She had treated Eddie Wong personally, a month or so before she shot him in the head with Jacob's gun. All her life she felt a certain kind of hatred for ghouls. She just didn't like them, their flaky skin or their raspy voices. She felt resentment, she sometimes felt like they were more suited to the wasteland, that this was their time and place and she was an outsider in the world of the ghouls. Eddie had not helped her resentment. In fact, he bragged about how well-adapted he was to surviving in harsh environments. Obviously he was insecure, not just because ghouls frequently were prejudiced against even in Hopeville, but because he was being treated by a pretty girl. He was trying to impress her, and she noticed, but he still agitated her own insecurities. She gave him aid with the same passion she put into all her work, though, because she was a fanatical Follower and firmly believed in helping for the sake of helping.  
Then nearly a month later she had to shoot him in the face. In one instant she discovered the limits of the Followers, she discovered her own limits. She couldn't help Eddie Wong with kindness and care. The Followers had taken a stupid risk to try and help him as such.  
She wondered if Eddie had ever been worth helping, but ultimately she decided he had been. The event only strengthened her resolve, but she realized that she needed to move on. She started scavenging parts from the auto-docs which littered the Divide, figuring out how they worked when even the NCR and the Followers didn't. She began to borrow liberally from the medical supplies of all Divide dwellers. She retrieved her gun.  
Her last act in the Divide was a seduction. She romanced a female NCR guard, one of the elites in riot armor. She fucked her, and then slit her throat in the night. Stole her armor, stole everything from the NCR military hospital and left. Julia loved the Followers of the Apocalypse, but she wasn't a follower. Julia was a leader.


	8. Legion Warpaint

Legion Warpaint  
They brought the prisoners to the Legate one at a time, threw them to the ground at his feet. They told them to get on their knees. The Malpais Legate would wait a moment, seemingly hesitating, contemplating the kill. Then, without speaking, he would execute them with his pistol. The Dead Souls would retrieve another prisoner, drag them out to the Legate, and throw them at his feet.  
“On your knees,” Scratch rasped. His face had been twisted by ghoulification into a permanent sneer, a curling cleft lip at the corner of his mouth. He wore nothing into battle but rags wrapped around his waist and a centurion helmet, a breach of dress code but fitting for a creature whose very service defied the emperor.  
The man obeyed the Legion ghoul and got to his knees, looking at the corpses of his fallen comrades left to rot in the sun on the open road. He stared into the eyes of the Legate, eyes which held no remorse, no mercy, no pity. Hard eyes, harder than any stone in the wasteland. The Legate raised his pistol, aimed right into the man's forehead. The cold steel of the Legate's Colt .45 mimicked his cold steel glare. Around him Dead Souls breathed heavily, excited to see the man's body decorate the road with the bodies of his peers.  
“I... I pledge loyalty to the Legion!” the man shouted fearfully and desperately. “I pledge loyalty to Caesar!”  
The Dead Souls all groaned, and the Legate lowered his weapon. The man fell back in relief, tears running silently down his cheeks.  
“Put him with the slaves,” the Legate's baritone caused the man to tremble. He was picked up roughly by Scratch and Mortuus, dragged into a separate pen packed to full with beaten and bruised men and women wearing rags and slave collars. It didn't look ideal, but it was better than dying, the man thought. Before they unlocked the cage, though, Mortuus and Scratch turned to the man.  
“This is your official induction to the Legion,” Scratch rasped as Mortuus threw the man into the fence, “Congratulations.” Scratch smiled as Mortuus beat the man in front of the slaves, focusing mostly on his face and chest. Each hit felt like a blow from a sledgehammer. When the man couldn't stand anymore Mortuus held him against the fence, punching his face again and again.  
This was their usual ritual for inducting new slaves. 'Legion warpaint' was what they called it when the new slave's face was covered in their own blood. The men they beat until they were almost dead, the women and children they did worse to. When the man finally had his 'legion warpaint' they threw him in the cage with the other slaves, who had watched dispassionately and did not embrace the new slave. “Welcome to the Legion,” Scratch spit and then laughed a laugh like rusted metal. Mortuus said nothing, just stroked his knuckles and smiled small and vicious.


	9. Birth of a Daughter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a daughter is born

Birth of a Daughter  
Athena always had to remember that not too long ago she had been just like the Crazy Horns. Her own life as a tribal eking out a subsistence living was not so far behind her that she couldn't still recall the words of her elder, couldn't still remember her husband's rough hands caressing her face in their tent made of hide and scrap.  
Athena had been married at thirteen, when she reached puberty, as was traditional among her people. By fourteen she would've had her first child, had it not been stillborn. She remembered the moment, holding her son in her hands, her son who never grew up. She remembered how she felt at that time, and it made her a little sick whenever she remembered how relieved she felt. Holding the tiny body in her hands she felt relief that this boy, her boy, would never have to live in the wasteland. Would never have to sacrifice and sacrifice and sacrifice for so little, would never have to fight every day for survival. She wept bitter tears for another soul saved from the wasteland. That was life in the tribe. Death was everywhere, and it wouldn't be long after their son that her husband was gone, too. After the death of her husband she withdrew from everyone. She knew it didn't matter, that it wouldn't be long before they were gone, too. She was right.  
That was life in the wasteland. It wasn't any different for the Crazy Horns, or at least that was what she told herself. She knew it was different for the Crazy Horns, though. They weren't her old tribe. They'd been coddled by the Canaanites, and now they were being aided by her and the Daughters of Hecate. Athena's efforts had all but eliminated miscarriages in the tribe, which introduced a new problem of providing food for everyone. It put the Crazy Horns in a perilous place, feeding the adults or feeding their children. Although Athena had at first appeared to be a boon, in truth she was anything but.  
Heartsong had no complications in her pregnancy; she was a healthy young woman who was well taken care of by her family. It was her first child, and Athena predicted a boy. Whenever a new baby was to be born Athena would return to Ouroboros a few weeks in advance and return with more Daughters. The tribe never questioned it; they had long since stopped questioning Athena and her knowledge. They didn't question why the birth was always in secret, how no one could attend but the Daughters. How the mother never quite remembered what happened afterwards. Most importantly the tribe never questioned why all their children had become so sickly.  
Heartsong's labor was long, almost a full twenty-four hours. Athena was aided by her sisters Carrie and Ruth, who had much experience with the ritual. They doped the mother heavily, and when Heartsong gave birth they took her child away. Athena stayed and comforted her, gave her more medication, water, held her hand and congratulated her. Ruth and Carrie returned with an infant swaddled in cloth. They handed it to Heartsong, told her it was her son. She named him, his family name. It was not his family, but they named him. She was not his mother, but she named him.  
Athena was always correct about the gender of the child. Never once was she wrong, her predictions unerring in every birth. The tribe considered it part of her mystic ability. After Heartsong's labor, Ruth and Carrie returned to Ouroboros. They took with them Heartsong's actual child, a girl. It was in this way the Daughters of Hecate weakened the tribes. Athena considered it saving them.


	10. Child versus Child

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sons and Daughters alternate title

Child versus Child  
There were no Dirty Hops over eighteen years old. It was a tribe comprised entirely of children, and that is why the Legion underestimated them. It should have occurred to the Legate that the tribe which had lived with the serpent for centuries would be more than prepared for battle.  
In their first conflict the Legion was slaughtered by children wielding guns and tomahawks. The Dirty Hops attacked and ran, attacked the Legion on all sides, pushed them into a narrow canyon and slaughtered them all. It was a bloodbath. The Dirty Hops were vicious, they held nothing back. The Legion had no compunctions against slaughtering children, many of the Legionaries were children, but they had to catch the Dirty Hops before they could kill them. Only the youngest, quickest, and most agile made direct attacks. The older tribals held back, took their shots and then moved. They knew the terrain; they cornered the Legion by exploiting their fear of the serpent.  
The Malpais Legate was impressed, as was Caesar. Though how impressed Caesar was didn't compare to how incensed he was that his mighty Legion had been repelled, no, humiliated by a tribe of children. The response had to be swift, decisive, and brutal. It had to make a statement. Any failure on the part of the Legion could not be allowed to stand, no matter how slight.  
In truth the victory of the Dirty Hops had hardly been a victory at all. The legion lost perhaps fifty men, as they hadn't put many resources into subduing the tribe, underestimating a tribe of children. As few as twenty additional men may have turned the battle in the Legion's favor, despite the Dirty Hops unexpectedly smart tactics. It was the closest Caesar had ever come to defeat in the life of the Legion, though, so the response needed to be ten times greater. That was Caesar's logic. His logic told him that the only redress to this affront was to kill the serpent.  
It wasn't known if the Dirty Hops worshiped the serpent, tolerated it, or were simply not strong enough to get rid of it, but it was assured that killing the beast would cow them into submission. As it turned out the Dirty Hops worshiped the serpent, feeding to it any Dirty Hop who had become 'too old,' but that hardly altered the plan.  
The dead souls, more by merit of their nonconformity than their skill were on the front line of this operation. Their loss to the serpent would remove their slightly embarrassing position within the otherwise pure Legion, and so Mortuus Anima and his men were sent with the task of killing a snake so large it could swallow a man in a single gulp.  
It killed three of his men, and every man in the contubernia supporting his. They fought with a full Centuriae, but it was obviously not going to be enough. The serpent was too big, too powerful, and a frontal assault wasn't going to be enough, no matter how many men they fed the beast. The Legate was cleverer than that, even if only just.  
The dead souls had been first into the hunting grounds of the serpent, howling and brandishing their weapons, the lust for blood driving them onwards with the fury of the Legion behind them. Though as the battle progressed they fell back, let more and more legionaries assault the serpent as they retreated. Yet the serpent followed them every step of the way. The Legate sent more and more men in yet they lost more and more ground. The battle began to turn, and it appeared that this would be the fall of the Legate.  
It appeared this would be the Legate's last battle until a centurion, positioned above the serpent's hunting ground, fired an incinerator. The dead souls had been retreating, but had left behind them a trail of napalm. As the serpent had advanced it had covered itself in military-grade explosives. Before Mortuus turned tail and fled for his life he flung a full barrel into the serpent's maw.  
The sky turned red. All were consumed, the earth, the sky, the serpent and the Legion. Every tribe for miles around fell in line. Mortuus always bore the mark on his back, where he was burned from the napalm he used to burn the serpent, the serpent and every other legionary that had fought alongside him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's kind of hack to just have this be the First Battle of Hoover Dam but I like it because it draws a direct parallel between Joshua Graham and a big fuckin snake


	11. The New Tribe

The New Tribe  
Julia shaved her head with a combat knife in preparation. She smiled at her reflection. She couldn't contain her giddiness, her glee burning two hot coals in her eyes. She grabbed another lock and scraped.  
“Hey, looking good,” Marceline lurked in the doorway. Her fiendish grin mimicked Julia's. Julia only had half of her hair.  
She had returned from the Followers triumphant, wiser about the world and with a glorious bounty of medical supplies and technology. The Goddess welcomed her with open arms, embracing her daughter with familial warmth. Ouroboros had changed very little in the time Julia was gone, and for that she was glad. The wasteland seemed to change every day, it was good that there was somewhere consistent, some place that would always be there for her. A rock in the ever shifting sands of the wastes.  
She got to work on the auto-doc immediately, with help from Tiegan and Marceline. Her schematics were rough, and she didn't have all the parts necessary, but Tieg was a brilliant engineer, and in a little more than a month they had a functioning auto-doc set up in the pyramid of the Goddess.  
The Goddess was delighted beyond measure. She spoke, “Julia, you are my best daughter, and my favorite.” Julia blushed in spite of herself. “I want your help with something, something that I think will increase the strength of my Daughters tenfold.”  
Julia was expecting this. It was the reason she put so much effort into securing an auto-doc. It hadn't been a practical undertaking. There wasn't a medical procedure they couldn't perform without it, with the Goddess' knowledge and the supplies they accrued in tribute from tribes. The auto-doc had only one important specialty that they would be hard-pressed to perform without. Cybernetics were a fairly new technology before the war, especially military-grade cybernetics. An auto-doc meant the Daughters would now have an additional edge over the other wastelanders, the tribals and the Canaanites and the Legion. It meant they would have an advantage over even a force like the NCR.  
When she was finished shaving her head bald Julia took a controlled dose of med-x. “Just wait, this works- you're next,” she waggled her eyebrows at Marce, “We are the future of the wasteland.”  
Julia was the test patient. If she survived the procedure, Hecate would begin performing it on other girls, until she had a powerful, cybernetically-augmented fighting-force. Julia was excited. She personally chose her augments, implants to make her stronger and smarter. To her it was not only a chance to become more powerful, it was another in a long line of refutations of the technophobic Legion.  
The procedure was a success. The Goddess christened Julia the first Maenad, her wild woman, a terrifying single-person army. The first of many to come. Of course every other Maenad's initiation would be different. Their loyalty had to be proven. Their will and fortitude had to be tested. In the future it would be a ritual to make one ready for cybernetic augmentations. Julia only had a free pass as she proved her loyalty and fortitude by volunteering to be the first subject.  
The surgery was not completely perfect. Augmentations along Julia's spine left thick scars, a trail of knotted flesh that Julia wore with pride. She was faster and stronger, she was smarter. She was a Maenad, an elite. Her scars were her tribal markings. Tribal markings of her new tribe.


	12. Savages

Savages  
She saw him through The Lady's scope; saw him with his men slaughtering animals. This was the edge of northern Legion territory. Julia and her girls were on their way to reclaim Burham Springs from the gehenna, or at least plunder the mines. They were passing through Manti-La territory and that's where she saw him, on his Manti-La campaign.  
Mortuus Anima was destroying Manti-La hunting grounds, killing the tribe with attrition. He gleefully massacred animals with his machete, a weapon he'd carried with him since childhood. He let the blood of the beasts spill on his clothes, covering himself in viscera. His smile was broad, he only truly found himself happy when he was killing. There was nothing careful or graceful about his killing, hacking at the beasts indiscriminately with his cherished weapon. When the beasts were dead he set upon the corpses, mangling them until no distinguishing marks remained. He towered proudly over their desecrated bodies. He made sure there was nothing left for the Manti-La.  
It disgusted Julia. She was horrified at his savageness, his brutality. She lined him up in her sights, scrutinizing to make sure it was really him. There was no mistaking it. She considered killing him then and there. Amongst his men. She could picture it, him proudly surveying his savage exertions when suddenly and unexpectedly his head burst like overripe mutfruit. She couldn't stop picturing his face as it happened. The thought made her sick. She couldn't do it.  
The Maenads had been on a campaign of terror for weeks, indiscriminately killing and maiming as they felt on their way to the Springs. Only rarely did their violence serve any purpose. Occasionally they slaughtered raiders for an ammo cache, or tortured tribals for food supplies, but more often than not they did because they could.  
They killed because no one could stop them and it felt good. All their lives these girls had been intimidated by the wasteland, its size and scope, its dangers that lurked everywhere, omnipresent and terrifying in innumerable ways. It had all changed. They had changed. They were now the force best adapted to the wasteland. They were now big, the wasteland was now small. They towered over the wastes like giants and gleefully stepped on the ants (occasionally literally) simply because they could. Because they had spent a long time being scared by the ants, being scared by the thought of the ants. Now the ants were scared of them. They had the supplies, the ammo, the weapons, the armor, the strength and smarts and speed to fear no more.  
Julia looked at her hands. Her gloves were stained with blood of all kinds. The faceplate of her helmet had a diagonal stripe of dried blood where an arterial spurt had splashed and she had left it there. She let the Dead Soul and his men leave, watched them walk away from their carnage triumphantly through the scope of her Anti-Material. The day would come when she would kill her kindred spirit. That day would not be today. The endless fires of Burham Springs beckoned.


	13. The Decanus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Dead Soul reconnects with his sister

The Decanus  
Mortuus Anima loved the Legion with all his heart. It would have been easy for him to simply enjoy what being a member of the Legion allowed him to do, would have been easy for him to just think like the animal he behaved like. He knew the Legion gave him the opportunity to fight, to test himself, to endlessly wage battle. Conflict defined him. The Legion gave purpose to his life. It gave him a reason to fight. It gave him direction, something to fight against, a greater good to fight for. Although on a certain level Mortuus was a simple beast, he was wise enough to know it was by the grace of Caesar that allowed him to act a simple beast. Every blow he delivered was empowered by the authority of Caesar's Legion. He was a weapon for the Legion, and he loved every minute of it.  
He never questioned slaveholding. Every contubernia had at least one slave for every two legionaries, sometimes two slaves for every legionary. The slaves maintained weapons, carried supplies, cooked, established camps, and occasionally acted as distractions or cannon fodder in battle. A legionary's life was nothing but battle, the slaves handled everything else. It was perfect for Mortuus, and not unlike his life even before the Legion, which was a time so removed from his Legion life that he couldn't even remember the name of the tribe he had once belonged to. He never questioned the Legion's policy of slavery, because he felt he was a slave himself. He was a slave to life, to living. He was a slave to the needs of his body, a slave to the endless work of staying alive. A slave to his impulses, the demands of a living body and a living mind.  
The Legion freed him from all that. He no longer had to be a person, someone who needed to provide food for himself, who needed to think about others, who needed to think at all. The Legion had freed him from the slavery of choice. He couldn't understand why anyone else would feel differently, why anyone else wouldn't consider their slavery freedom from a greater, all-consuming tyranny. He rounded up people to be chained and abused for this twisted notion of freedom he held, this concept that had been born in him from his ignorance both willing and unwitting.  
He strode past the cage where they kept their slaves in triumph. He paraded like a hero for the men and women and children they kept chained with collars around their necks, kept corralled in a rusty chain-link fence. He was proud of his accomplishments in beating down these people, breaking them with his brutality. Beating them with his fists and his body- the only things he gave any credence to- beating them within an inch of their lives backed by the implicit endorsement of Caesar and the Legion. He ground the slaves down into the dirt and he did it with pride and satisfaction, knowing, absolutely knowing in his heart of hearts that he was right, that it was right, right right right.  
He smiled happily but not warmly at the slaves. He lunged forward and rattled their cage, watching with satisfaction as they recoiled in horror. Suddenly and fiercely he slammed his head into the fence and snarled at the slaves. A woman began to cry, quietly. Mortuus chuckled dark and low, then quickly grew bored and wandered away.  
He watched Reave run up to him. “Sir, someone's asking for the decanus,” Reave reported, “A woman came up to the camp and asked to see you.”  
Mortuus couldn't conceive of a reason any woman would be brave and foolish enough to wander into a Legion camp unattended, but he saw no reason to not meet with her. He followed Reave and was stunned. He was taken aback by the woman standing amongst his men with slight apprehension but fierce determination.  
She had changed. He hadn't expected that. All this time he had been searching for a girl, a little girl with tribal dreads and childish cares. She was taller, even though the coat she wore dwarfed her. Her hair was shorter, no longer dreaded and adorned with beads but trimmed to look like a man's hair. Her eyes, though, her eyes were unmistakable. The eyes that were his own. He gasped with his deep, soft voice, “Arama.”  
“Hello, Heart,” Julia greeted her estranged older brother. She hugged her coat tighter as he embraced her with filial warmth.


	14. Marked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A flashback

Marked  
The girl was never given a name, but her family was Aram and so she came to be known as Arama. She was the granddaughter of the tribe's leader, a severe man, carved out of granite and bearing a beak-like nose. Arama would always remember two moments with him. The first, when she was very young. He was teaching her brother to hunt, and she was there, too. Heart clutched his machete timidly, fidgeting and glancing worriedly from Arama to their grandfather. Their grandfather was getting frustrated at Heart, when suddenly he leaned in to whisper conspiratorially into Arama's ear, “I'm going to play a trick on your brother.”  
There was a twinkle in his eye as he stood back up. Arama would never forget the twinkle. Her grandpa then began to whoop and holler and dove into the brush. Heart's eyes exploded in fear. From the bush a baby gecko burst forth in a panic, straight at Heart. Instinctually he raised the machete that was almost as big as he was and brought it down on the baby gecko's skull, splitting it. He was about to cry when his grandfather followed the gecko out of the bush, and seeing his grandson's handiwork celebrated uproariously. He carried both his grandchildren home on his shoulders, beaming.  
Arama's second memory of her grandfather was not so happy.  
When she was eight years old Arama was marked. She was isolated from the tribe, for who she was, for who she could be. Her grandfather marked her as the future of the tribe. As a leader, as a teacher. Arama didn't care for it. She didn't like being marked. She didn't like the way it made her different. Different from the girls she grew up with, like Athena. Different from the boys she grew up with, like Heart. She didn't fit in with the boys of the tribe, even though everyone treated her like a boy, and she didn't fit in with the girls of the tribe, even though she was a girl. She was isolated from everyone. She was a freak who didn't fit anywhere. She began to act out.  
When most of the tribe was shunning her Dark Mother took her in, cared for her in a way that the rest of the tribe didn't. Dark Mother was herself scorned, in a different way. She was the tribe's herbalist. She had a habit of staring far and away at nothing in particular, and being slow to answer. Arama discovered this mild autism was a result of her constant handling of drugs. Dark Mother was almost always high.  
Arama took over almost all the duties of tribe herbalist, leaving Dark Mother Herbalist in name only. Upon being 'marked' Arama was given a mask which, when coupled with gloves, proved to be enough to avoid the stupefying effects of the tribal medicine. Dark Mother started to become more alert and aware for not having to handle healing powder all the time.  
Being marked meant Arama was unfit for marriage, the fate of every other girl in the tribe when they reached puberty. As she watched her peers all paired up she grew jealous. She didn't want to be married off, obviously. In fact it disgusted her that these girls were being treated like livestock, paired off for breeding. But it didn't matter that she considered it misogynist, the idea that she was not allowed something enraged her. Just another way she had been treated like a pariah, like garbage by 'her' people.  
Her revenge was ill-conceived. She seduced husbands away from their young brides, to prove to herself that she was just as worthy of marriage as any of her peers, and to make a mockery of the entire system. As it turned out, all she succeeded in doing was embarrassing herself and making many young brides miserable. Marriage was for life in the tribe, there was no divorce, there were no second marriages, and it was never the man's fault. If a young husband slept with Arama it wasn't his problem, it was his wife's problem, and she was treated with the scorn all wives who did not satisfy their husbands received. Arama grew disgusted with herself and everyone around her.  
When she was fifteen she fled the tribe. In a year the Twisted Hairs were betrayed by the Legion, crushed and absorbed.


	15. Faceless Men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another flashback

Faceless Men  
When she was a child Athena loved being alone. It wasn't a good idea, it was a luxury she allowed herself. She prided herself on her ability to slip away from the eyes of supervision and hide in secluded places. To disappear. When she was gone everything bothering her was gone, too. As she hid from her parents and the tribe so too did she hide from her worries, her fears, her responsibilities and chores. Even as a child she had her share of responsibilities, as did all children of the tribe.  
When she was alone, Athena didn't have to shovel brahmin shit. She didn't have to tan hides or sew clothing. She didn't have to do whatever her father told her to do, without question. When she was alone her father and mother didn't hit her. Her brothers didn't beat her up for fun. When she was alone she was never yelled at, choked, or picked up and thrown. She didn't have to clean. When she was alone, Athena could just be. Just exist. It was a time when she found peace.  
The day it happened she didn't just escape. She fled. She was seven years old. She'd fucked up really bad. Brahmin had died, and she was certain when their deaths came to light she was next. It was the worst thing she'd ever done, and as she ran away she cried. She could feel the blows, feel her body break under the punishment she was sure to receive. She didn't intend to come back this time. She was gone for good, she knew it. If she came back she wouldn't be the same person. That Athena was dead. She was a new Athena, someone with a clean slate. Someone without a past. Her new life was just beginning. She was unaware of how correct she was to think that.  
She thought she was alone, in the shelter of a rocky outcropping some two miles away from the tribe. Her feet hurt, so she sat down to rest. He crept up behind her, as she rubbed the soles of her feet he grabbed her. She bit his hand but he wouldn't let her scream. She kicked and thrashed, but the combination of her fatigue and his strength made it all for naught. He carried her back to his camp, a group of hard-looking men wearing football pads and carrying lawnmower blades fashioned into makeshift machetes. Faceless men, wearing bandanas and goggles. They were all filthy, covered in wasteland dust.  
“What'd you bring us here, Cato?” one of the faceless men addressed the man carrying Athena in a growl. “Supper?”  
“Maybe,” Athena could feel the man's hot gravel voice on the back of her head. “She's tough. I'm thinking of giving her a collar.”  
“Chain her up?” the faceless man examined her. “Let's see her.”  
The man holding Athena tossed her to the ground, but before she could get up and run away she felt a boot come crashing down on her back. Whatever beating she had left home to avoid that day caught up with her and then some. She was beat into unconsciousness.  
When she woke up it was dark. She had been stripped naked, only now around her neck was fastened a thick metal collar. It bit into her skin, too tight to put her finger between. Her whole body hurt. Her left eye was too swollen to look out of. She began to cry. She sobbed. She couldn't even tell where she was, all she knew was that it was cold, and hard.  
A faint mechanical whirring came from the collar. She could feel it vibrate her esophagus. She clawed at it with her swollen and bruised hands. Her hands hurt. They were bloody. The tips of her fingers were raw.  
“Hey, quit it in there!” she could barely hear. The origin of the voice rattled the chain-link fence she realized she was caged in. She screamed at the man, as loud as she could. “Hey, shut the fuck up!” She screamed more. She started hitting the collar. “Shut the fuck up before I shut you up!”  
“Fuck you!” her voice was a strangled cry. The guard opened the cage door and entered the cage. Everything in Athena's body was screaming in pain, but she slipped between his legs and ran out.  
She ran naked across the wasteland in pitch darkness, not knowing where she was going and in total pain. At a certain point a clicking noise started in her collar, only to stop abruptly accompanied by the cessation of the collar's mechanic hum and the smell of burnt plastic. She ran through the night, and when the sun came up she hid. She tried to sleep but found she couldn't. She hid and sobbed until she heard voices. She thought they were the faceless men searching for her, but it turned out to be a Twisted Hair raiding party, fresh from an assault on another tribe.  
They recognized her instantly by her dreadlocks. The faceless men had tried to strip her of her tribal identity by taking her clothes, but they didn't realize all of her tribal markings were contained within the twists of her hair. She fell at the feet of her tribesmen sobbing and clutching the collar.  
The raiding party brought her back to the tribe. Efforts were undertaken to free her from the collar, but they only succeeded in loosening it and damaging the metal, fusing it together so the collar couldn't be removed. She described the faceless men to the elders, who discussed the damage done to her with fear and awe. Unbeknownst to them, this was their first encounter with Caesar's Legion. It set the tone for every encounter proceeding, until the Legion wiped out the Twisted Hairs for good.


	16. The Future of the Tribe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A flashback

The Future of the Tribe  
Aram Heart, pride of the Twisted Hairs, grandson of the elder. His promise was astounding. It was no secret that Heart's grandfather was grooming him to someday lead the tribe. He was too young to join raiding parties, but he hunted, and quickly became the best hunter of the tribe when he was as young as eight years old. His kills were quick, clean. He never expended any energy that wasn't needed. Efficient to the point of cold.  
Heart was never a smart boy, never nearly as smart as his sister, but he had his own intelligence. He never grew angry, he never judged. He perceived and he acted. He did everything with level-headed skill and grace. He didn't hesitate, he didn't reflect, he didn't regret. He traveled ever forward, never dwelling in the past or deliberating the present.  
The Twisted Hairs didn't have good relations with their neighboring tribes. They waged war, they extorted, and they threatened every other community. They grew strong at the expense of their neighbors, so when their neighbors fell to Caesar's Legion they were able to fight off Caesar's incursions into their land. They never engaged in any out-and-out battle, there was never any open warfare, but there were plenty of skirmishes which kept the Legion tide at bay.  
The first envoy of peace that Caesar sent was threatened, beaten, and sent back to Caesar disgraced. The second envoy Caesar sent was accompanied by dozens of guards and hundreds of slaves, bearing gifts of coins, armor, and weaponry. Not just to entice the Twisted Hairs with the riches of the Legion but to make it very clear that any true march of the Legion might be repelled but at great cost to the Twisted Hairs.  
His second envoy worked. The elders of the Twisted Hairs convened and decided to ally themselves with the Legion. They would work as scouts and representatives, be given weapons and armor, be treated as brothers to the Legion. There was only one condition, which gave the leader of the elders pause. If the Twisted Hairs were to join the Legion, they would have to give Caesar the grandson of the head elder. He was to become a legionary, as symbolic act of the Twisted Hair's and Legion's new alliance.  
And so the young man once known as Aram Heart, brother of Arama and grandson of Harpy, came to be known as Mortuus Anima. The first thing the Legion did was give him that name, the second thing the Legion did was shave off his hair, his dreadlocks. He was ten years old, and would spend the rest of his life in the Legion, trained to be a conqueror, given control of his own contubernia and becoming the pride of his commanders. From Aram Heart to the Dead Soul.  
After Aram Heart was taken away by the envoys of Caesar to begin his legionary training, one elder turned to another and said, “I believe we have just traded away the future of our tribe.” Julia would later reflect on what an apt statement that had been.


	17. Smoke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hecate has a vision

Smoke  
The Goddess had a vision. She blew out smoke, and it became a woman. The smoke-woman faced her, and each time the Goddess breathed out the smoke-woman became more solid, more real. It became a reflection of the Goddess, but without hair. The Goddess could feel herself fade away into the smoke-Goddess, as it became more real she evaporated to smoke. As the Goddess was almost completely gone the smoke-Goddess became a hideous monster with deep empty sockets for eyes and spines growing from its face. It screamed and evaporated back to smoke and the Goddess was alone in her chamber atop the pyramid again. The visions shook her, but she did not speak them to her Daughters, for fear they would worry.


	18. Brothers and Sisters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A multi-part chapter in which Julia meets her brother. CW: rape

Brothers and Sisters  
I. “Well you know me, I wouldn't kill anything if I didn't have to,” he said. “Remember that month I wouldn't eat anything but snack cakes?”  
They dined on grilled giant ant meat, not the finest but clearly the best he could get. She had to admit he had a way with food.  
“You developed rad sickness and threw up a bunch,” she nodded her head. He drank lustily from a bottle of soda.  
“Yeah,” his voice was deep, resonant like the low rumble of heavy thunder, but soft, “But, y'know, gotta kill to eat,” he shrugged and took another ravenous bite of ant meat, “That's just the way things are.”  
Julia Aram stared at her brother, the Dead Soul. She found him surprisingly pure. Where other Legionaries bore battle scars with pride his skin was smooth and uncalloused. He was free of dirt and grime, appearing almost freshly washed. There was no indication of any past on him. Not the bloody battles of the Legion, not the vicious executions he'd committed, not the gleeful torture he'd engaged in. He looked as pure and innocent as a child. The accumulated weight of his transgressions against humanity were obscured by the curtain of memory, as Julia could not help but still see him as the little boy she'd grown up with. As the young boy afraid to kill a young gecko.  
“I'm so glad I found you!” he said, “I never stopped looking. When I heard about Dry Wells I knew you couldn't have been there. I never gave up hope!”  
He beamed a wide smile at her. She couldn't help smiling back.  
Not that she felt threatened by him. She didn't feel threatened by anything anymore, certainly not the Legion. These children had a pathological revulsion towards armor and weaponry more complex than lawnmower blades jury rigged with handles. Their discipline, numbers, and zealotry gave them an edge to be sure, but it was an edge which was easily removed with a sniper rifle or a landmine. Their misogyny left them with a gaping blind spot when it came to women, notably. Their firm belief in the inferiority of women, their concept of women as nothing more than property made it that much easier for any competent woman to trick or manipulate them.  
Julia had entered the Legion camp wearing none of her armor aside from her coat, she'd come without Lady and her shotgun, and yet she was still the most equipped soldier in the camp. On her person she'd concealed two .22 pistols, 6 .22 clips, her Colt Navy and full ammo belt, two snub-nosed colt magnums with full chambers, a Colt M1911 with three clips, a bowie knife, a butcher's cleaver, and a switchblade. In comparison her brother was totally unarmed, with a kit of weapons containing brass knuckles, his Twisted Hair machete, and boxing tape in his tent. She had personally noted the weapons of everyone in the camp, including slaves, one of which had concealed a crude metal shiv on their body. If it came down to it she could kill every other person at the Legion camp her brother staffed, including him and the slaves, with her armory even in its diminished capacity, even without the force of her Maenads who were concealed in the surrounding hillside against her orders. Avata was personally clutching Julia's helmet, ready to give it back to her captain at a moment’s notice.  
II. She shared a tent with her brother. She was surprised to find it the same as every other tent in camp. In her not-insignificant experience with the Legion she had learned that commanders were eager and waiting to pull rank. A strict and fanatical devotion to the hierarchy in the Legion led to fetishizing authority, and Decanus and Centurions all had their own way of expressing their rank. Centurions in particular took advantage of their positions by ownership of their own contubernias of private slaves. The character of these slave contubernias was often a reflection of the Centurion's character; for instance the 'lovers' and the rapists would often have a formation of women slaves of all ages, whereas the secretly homosexual Centurions would surround themselves with male 'personal groomers.'  
Decanus couldn't afford the luxury of extra slaves, so they usually expressed their position with better equipment, including larger tents. Her brother did wear better equipment, but it was also flagrantly in violation of Legion dress code. The scorn, disrespect, and demerits his armor likely cost him would certainly outweigh any tactile benefits. His ancestral machete was unique but had no true advantage over lawnmower blades. Her brother Heart was a surprisingly humble commander.  
They slept with their clothes on. When she was closer Julia could tell by the smell her brother hadn't taken his clothes off in a long time. She was wearing her coat, which smelled reassuringly of herself and gunmetal, but under her coat she was wearing shorts and an undershirt she'd taken from a dead woman. They smelled disconcertingly unlike Julia. She spent the entire night either overwhelmed by the stench of her brother's leather or unnerved by the unfamiliar smell of her own clothes.  
She fell asleep at some point, and awoke after her brother, much later than her usual 5am wake-up time. She woke after sunrise, to the sound of her brother sharpening his machete. He crouched hunched over, the brim of his stetson pulled low over his eyes. He was too absorbed in the act of sharpening to notice her, but when she rested her hand on his shoulder he fell back on his butt and smiled at her, like a child playing in the dirt.  
“What do you want to do today?” he asked.  
“I get a choice?” she was surprised, “Don't you have Legion stuff to do? Drills, and... Patrols?”  
“We don't patrol. We're scouting. They're scouting,” he gestured to his men, “I can scout with my sister.”  
Dead Soul's scouting with his sister turned out to be more like a vigorous and fun hike. Julia was surprised at how much fun she was having just crawling around rock formations with her brother. He occasionally would stop, pointing out interesting plants or landmarks on the horizon, and Julia played along, acting like she didn't know that a certain plant could be ground into a salve, or what the scorch marks of laser weaponry looked like on stone. She nodded along dumbly, humoring him. He was so proud, showing off his knowledge to his little sister. She couldn't help feeling proud of him, too. He was so confident, so at ease in hostile terrain.  
He was curiously unarmed the entire day, opting to leave his machete back at camp. She assumed it was because the territory they traversed was already charted by her brother's men. They never encountered any threats. Nothing spoiled the perfect day for Julia. At least, not until she got back to camp.  
Her brother had to convene with his unofficial second-in-command about the day's scouting report, leaving her alone at his tent. She was sitting there when she was approached from behind by one of the contubernia's ghouls, Scratch. She heard his unsteady gait, his bare feet slapping the ground as he made no attempt to disguise his approach. He breathed at a low rasp, sniggering at her back.  
“You know nobody's bothering you because the Decanus is your brother,” he said, “If I touched you he'd tear my face off. What little face there is to be torn off.” She continued to ignore his presence. He breathed heavier, sucking his few remaining teeth and sniggering more.  
“Nobody crosses Mortuus. But we'll be meeting up with the rest of the Centuriae soon,” he continued telling her back, “Mortuus may be tough, but he's subject to the command of the Centurion,” he smiled so wide she could feel it without looking at him, “And I'm sure the Centurion will be interested in you, little profligate.”  
He walked off laughing a choking, sputtering hack of a laugh. Julia mentally tallied up her equipment again, and used her knowledge of ghoul biology to determine the quickest way to kill Scratch, and then the most satisfying way. When her brother finished talking to Reave he returned to her, and noting her expression asked what was on her mind.  
“Just thinking about datura root,” she smiled at him, “Just thinking about today.”  
III. Julia stayed with her brother for a few more days. Being with him was surprisingly pleasant. They simply spent time together, most of the time not even speaking, just enjoying each other's company. Every morning they'd make a point of watching the sunrise together. Just him and her, watching the horizon for a good hour and a half, not talking. What did they have to say to each other? What could they say to each other? Perhaps in a better world they could have compared scars, talked strategy, boasted of great victories. In a perfect world they might have been able to laugh at how similar they'd turned out. Both tough and strong and dominant.  
It was not a perfect world, though. It was the world of the Legion. In the Legion's world women weren't allowed to be strong and dominant. Even if her brother didn't treat her like property like he'd been taught she was still expected to be docile and subservient. They followed his schedule, ate what he wanted to eat, slept when he slept. When he convened with Reave she had to sit someplace else and wait patiently for her brother to return. When they went out on the attack she was expected to stay behind and wait.  
Julia played along for the most part, willing to play the role of servile maiden for a while to spend time with her brother, but if no-one was actually watching her she wasn't just going to sit on her hands. She spied on the contubernia's strategy meetings, and when she found out that they were planning an attack against a small group of wastelanders they'd scouted she had to see.  
She slipped away from the camp after the Dead Souls had begun their march, and she made it to the location of the wastelanders before they did. She discovered the coordinates given to her brother led to a small ruin, the calcified skeleton of a gas station or maybe the shadow of a country home. It was occupied by a small group, three men and two women. They made no effort to conceal their location, building a campfire out of garbage that left thick black smoke that could be seen for miles around. They had dressed a fresh gecko kill; its corpse still splayed open on the rocks behind them. They looked to most likely be raiders, at best mercenaries. They wore scraps as armor, leather and twisted metal, gathered and claimed at such different times and from such different sources they had no uniform amongst their own bodies much less their companions. A hardened bunch to be sure, but no more hardened than any other wastelander, and much softer than any of the Legionaries serving under her brother.  
The wastelanders anticipated the arrival of the Dead Souls, weapons drawn at the first sign of company. The Dead Souls made no effort to mask their approach, but surprisingly were not approaching with weapons drawn. In fact, after some tense words with a legionary Julia couldn't quite see the men and women lowered their weapons (which ranged from a military pistol to a sharpened stick) and let the Legion approach.  
She saw Heart walk towards the apparent leader of the wastelanders, a man wearing a faded baseball cap haloed with barbed wire. Her brother was easily a foot taller than the man in the hat, had nearly twice as much muscle mass, but that was just her brother. He was at least a half-foot taller than his tallest man, taller than most Centurions. If any man in the Legion resembled its bull standard that man was Mortuus Anima. His face was in shadow, the flickering caress of the trash-fire's light alighting only upon his broad chest. Julia couldn't even tell if her brother was armed. Silently his legionaries circled the small party of wastelanders.  
In short order the women and the men save the man in the hat were subdued, tackled to the ground by the Dead Souls. The decanus disarmed the man in the hat, batting aside the brandished pistol. He raised his fists to fight the man in the hat, who looked Mortuus over once and decided to turn tail and run. Scratch, the ghoul who harassed her before, sprang out of the darkness, smacking the man in the face with his ropey, emaciated ghoul strength. The man in the hat fell onto has back, his hat flying off his head and coming to rest at Mortuus's feet.  
As her brother picked the man up by his shirt and threw him into the fire face-first, Julia once again witnessed a sort of brutality and cruelty that seemed foreign in her brother, only now realizing that the person she saw as her brother existed entirely in her own perception. This was not Aram Heart, she knew now. That person she had known, that child named Aram Heart had been left behind more than a decade ago. This was Mortuus Anima, the Decanus. This was the dead soul, a man whose face now lit by scattered fires was clearly smiling, enjoying himself as he tore a man apart with his bare hands.  
Julia had to recalculate. Her capacity to kill the entire Legion squad had been based on a misconception that her brother was always unarmed. She realized as she witnessed him break a man's face unsparingly with his bare fist, then proceed to kill two other men in a similar fashion, that her brother had to always be considered armed, and considerably armed at that. She didn't think she could take her brother in close combat even with her best pistol, much less while flanked by his men. He wasn't necessarily fast, but he was tough, to the point that even when one of his combatants revealed a hidden switchblade and sliced his arm he didn't even flinch. That was the second fight and he killed the third fighter without bandaging his arm. It was unlikely he was on any medication, as per Legion law, and she hadn't seen him take any steroids or numbing agent in their time together. He was just iron-forged.  
Her security at the Legion camp was compromised, although she was fairly certain any harm to befall her person would be responded to with excessive force by her girls. She had stopped noticing them in the hills but it was unlikely they had left. In any case if she couldn't do it herself she didn't want it done. She began making plans for her escape.  
IV. The Legionaries brought the wastelander women back with them to camp. They bound their feet and carried them on their shoulders. One of the women, the larger blonde one, wouldn't stop shouting obscenities at them until Reave punched her in the eye. The smaller brunette could only watch the Legionaries march in quiet horror. It was morning when they made it back to camp. Julia had already managed to fall asleep, although she hadn't slept for long before her brother came back to the tent. He smelled overwhelmingly of blood and dirt, and he fell onto his bedroll in a dead sleep.  
She awoke promptly before sunrise. Her brother was still asleep. She got up and inspected the camp. The women they'd captured the night before were being kept separate from the slaves, captures not yet broken. They had been fitted with explosive collars even though they were bound completely, chained to a large boulder. When Julia awoke they had just fallen asleep of exhaustion, the brunette resting her head on the blonde's shoulder.  
Julia didn't have any special compassion for the women, noting the polka-dot track marks on their arms, their sunken eye sockets, the greasy sheen around their lips that came from habitual jet huffing. The signs of drug abuse. She was sorry they had been captured by the Legion, certainly. Nobody deserved to be made slave to the Legion, not even junkie raiders. But Julia had danced with the Legion many more times than these women, had been in much more vulnerable situations and not only had she avoided capture but had handily come out on top of every encounter. She pitied these women the Dead Souls had captured, to be sure. She pitied their weakness and stupidity.  
Her policy was usually to free captures, if it was convenient. She didn't bother with the slaves. Slaves were already broken, they weren't made to wear collars and most of the time they were capable of leaving on their own. They just didn't know how to be free anymore.  
Julia had never seen a capture broken before, but she had seen the aftermath time and time again. Legion slaves ceased to be people, ceased to be autonomous creatures and ceded all identity to their owners. Julia imagined it took a lot of evil to destroy someone so completely, to annihilate a consciousness so thoroughly. The time it took to break people into shells was so great and the people so numerous the consolidating of slaves had considerably slowed the Legion's progress across the southwest. The Legion would be able to reach the west coast in a year if every new conquest didn't necessitate the breaking of a new batch of slaves. Julia didn't really want to see what breaking a capture looked like, but she couldn't free these women for fear of blowing her cover.  
She waited for her brother to wake, which he did a few hours later. He awoke with a broad grin on his face, an undisturbed and untroubled sleep behind him. He was quite clearly proud of himself for having killed three men the night previous, although he did not bring it up to his sister. He ate a lot for breakfast, mantis eggs and freeze-dried apples. When he was finished with breakfast he did inspection, looking over his men from toe to tip, informally chiding them for breeches of uniform. He was in good spirits, awaiting the arrival of the centurion and the rest of the Centuriae. They were expected in two days’ time. Today, though, they were going to begin breaking the captures. Mortuus discussed with Reave how to do it.  
“We could just keep 'em tied to the rock,” Reave said, but Mortuus waved his suggestion away.  
“No, no good. I say we get the poles,” Mortuus was well-versed in the breaking of captures, and had learned in his own way to really make it potent. He'd studied under the Legate, after all, and no man was more skilled at breaking captures than the Malpais.  
They got the slaves to set up the poles, spacing them out about three and a half feet apart and pounding them into the ground with sledgehammers. The poles themselves were roughly six feet high, necessitating the use of a ladder to pound them into the ground. All throughout the day the sound of the sledgehammer rang through the camp. Ting, it hit metal. Ting, it struck again. Like the uniform ticking of a clock it rang, ting, as the metal was driven deeper into the earth.  
Every strike chimed an omen of doom, a countdown to Julia knew not exactly what but she dreaded it like the chiming of the metal, ting, signaled her own death.  
The slaves finished pounding the four metal poles, ting, into the ground at dusk. Tingggg, the final blow heralded doom, and the dispositions of all the women in the camp reflected as such. The captures grew more desperate with each blow of the hammer, whispering frantically to each other and even begging to be released, pleading and crying. Julia grew more ashen and withdrawn as the slaves worked, playing with her coat to keep herself occupied and grasping each of her weapons to reassure herself. The reactions of the slave women of the camp, who were the majority of slaves, were by far the most troubling. The slave women had not once expressed a single emotion since Julia arrived in camp, eternally grim-faced and downcast. They never talked amongst themselves in any way Julia could see, yet now they were exchanging glances, grouping together and watching the captures, sizing them up. Julia chillingly realized they were not deciding how the new captures would react to the breaking process, but whether the two women would survive at all. Surprisingly it seemed the blonde, the louder and bolder of the two, was not given good odds.  
The Legionaries all shared looks of carnal jubilation at the prospect of breaking new captures. As the day wore on the ghoul Scratch even began to salivate, as a hungry dog might. They all licked their lips at every ting of the hammer.  
Julia was not specifically banned from observing the breaking of new captures, but she was not invited either. It seemed to her she was just expected to be there, that she would want to be there to watch whatever they did to the two women. She decided to observe discreetly, so as not to betray her true feelings about the matter unconsciously, and in the likely event that she would rather leave.  
They unchained the women from the rock. They were weak from not eating or drinking the whole day, and they were starting to get withdrawals. They tried to fight back even still, but they were forced to the ground, three men to hold them down each. They cut the women's clothes off with a knife, lasciviously groping at their bodies. The blonde defiantly cursed the Dead Souls, but both were soon totally naked.  
Their wrists and ankles were bound with leather belts to the metal poles, stretching them like animal skins between the rods, leaving them exposed and vulnerable. The Dead Souls withdrew, forming a semi-circle around them. The slaves completed the circle, so that the women were surrounded. The captures stood naked and humiliated, the blonde screaming insults and foaming at the mouth while the brunette simply hung her head in shame, desperately trying to deny her reality.  
Julia heard the heavy footfalls of her brother as he approached the circle. He stood looking from woman to woman before approaching the spitting and screaming blonde. She spat on his chest and called him a faggot, to which he yanked her head back by her hair and hissed something Julia couldn't hear in her face.  
“Junkie whore,” Mortuus Anima called the woman through clenched teeth. She winced in pain. Her hair pulled free in Mortuus' grasp. A sign of malnutrition, not that he cared. He unbuckled his belt with one hand, letting his pants fall around his ankles. He stared directly into the woman's eyes, relished her horror as he grasped his member and thrust it upwards inside of her body. She shrieked.  
Julia looked away at the first thrust, unable to watch. She felt nauseous. She retreated away and threw up.  
The blonde continued to shriek as the Dead Souls hooted and hollered, laughing as Mortuus raped her. Julia couldn't watch anymore but she could tell by hearing that once finished with the blonde her brother started raping the brunette while one of his men without pause started to rape the blonde. She shrieked until she was completely hoarse, while the brunette was mostly silent through all eight assaults. Occasionally she burst into a jagged sob. The Legionaries laughed and reveled, taunting the women and sometimes beating them about the face and chest. Julia silently cried the entire time, hugging herself and wishing she were anywhere else but she couldn't move.  
The very worst thing she'd ever seen a Legionary do had been done by her own brother.  
Each man had his way with the women, ending with the ghouls. When they were finished they left the women there, naked and bruised, bodies soiled by ejaculate. They were left splayed out, unable to fall to the ground for the bonds holding their arms up. Julia watched them once it was over. The blonde was completely catatonic, the brunette continued to sob and weep over her own broken body. The slaves wetted the women's brows, pouring some water into their mouths possibly out of pity, although more likely as commanded given the ritual, practiced way the rapes had commenced.  
“You missed the breaking today,” Mortuus told his sister when she finally returned to the tent.  
“Oh,” Julia said. “It's over?” she asked him, totally numb.  
“Ah, naaah. We just did the first tonight. We're leaving 'em out for the Centuriae,” Mortuus grinned. He was pleased to welcome his commander with captures to break. He knew it would earn him commendation.  
After her brother fell asleep, Julia slipped out of the tent and made her way to the captures. The blonde was still in paralyzed shock, but the brunette was completely dehydrated from crying and looked at Julia mournfully as she approached. She said nothing and her gaze soon fell. She slumped over as much as she was able.  
“What are your names,” Julia whispered to her. The brunette stared at Julia in wearied contemplation, as though she had forgotten her own name already.  
“My name is Rose,” she said in a cracked whisper. She gestured to her companion, “Her name is Hope.”  
Julia stayed with Rose for awhile, cradling her broken body and resting her forehead on Rose's forehead, Julia weeping the tears Rose no longer could. “I'm sorry, I'm so sorry,” she whispered to Rose again and again, stroking her hair and rocking back and forth gently.  
Julia wiped away her tears, letting Rose go to slump over defeated again.  
“Rose, I want you to know, the Goddess watches over you always,” Julia whispered in her ear, quietly giving her an overdose of Med-X while stroking her face. She then apologized to Hope, stroking her blonde hair and giving her an apologetic kiss on the forehead. “The Goddess watches over you, Hope,” she said, giving her too a lethal dose of pain killer. Soon Hope and Rose fell asleep and quietly died. Julia wept silently over their lifeless shells, still unable by the bonds of the Legion's leather to fall to the ground.


	19. The Might of God

The Might of God  
Sometimes medicine just wasn’t enough. Congenital heart defects, deformities, chromosome imbalances, these could not be handled with a proper mixture of herbs. Of every two children Athena ‘delivered’ one would die within its first seven years of life. Of the ones that remained they required constant attention. Perhaps sensing the looming presence of death which haunted their children, mothers began to starve themselves refusing to leave their supposed children’s sides. The tribe was choking and sputtering on their dead children and they begged Athena for reassurance. Asked her to speak to the Goddess, asked the Goddess for mercy, for support.  
Athena had no reassurances, no blessings from the Goddess. She had grown bitter. Once again she was receding into herself, pulling away from her tribe. She had conquered the tribe at nineteen years old. They feared her, they revered her, and they were beneath her. They were not her equals. After being a Daughter so long Athena was beginning to find tribal life perverse, even. She saw them born into poverty and ignorance, she saw them die in poverty and ignorance. She had spent a decade with the tribe, she had seen an entire generation grow up, and the generation to proceed them die slowly and tragically.  
When she had first come to the Crazy Horns the tribal elders were roughly thirty years of age, the oldest member of the tribe being nearly in her forties. It hadn’t been strange to her that these people were relying on her, a teenager. Most of the tribe were teenaged, as most of the Twisted Hairs had been teenaged her whole life. Surviving past your twenties was the exception, not the norm in tribal life. If the elders didn’t listen to what teenagers told them they wouldn’t hear anything.  
Things had changed for the Crazy Horns by Athena’s involvement, though. Her medical knowledge had noticeably lengthened the lifespan of the Crazy Horns, even while she was secretly undermining their next generation. The combination had left the average age of the tribe roughly corresponding to her own.  
Things hadn’t really changed, though. They continued to age but grew no noticeably wiser, no smarter. The tribe was eking out a subsistence living without innovation for years before Athena arrived, and in the ten years she’d led them they’d lived out a subsistence living without innovation for ten years longer.  
She was ready to move on. The tribe was not. She wanted bigger and better things but the tribe was stagnating. The elders, now much older than their ancestors had ever been, still deferred to her judgement in all matters, in matter of fact had come to demand it. When she had arrived she accepted and was somewhat pleased to find she was more educated than people twenty years her elders, but now having a band of forty-year-olds simpering and bowing to her left her feeling disgusted and repulsed. She withdrew from the Crazy Horns, made herself much less accessible and much more distant. Her reticence only made the tribe more desperate to rely on her, more fearful of her departure.  
Children started dying, dying in ways the Crazy Horns couldn’t understand. There had never been a child with trisomy 21 or leukemia before, or certainly not at the rates that were occurring now. They needed Athena’s knowledge and reassurance. They needed her most and she was pulling away. The Crazy Horns were desperate.  
They turned to the New Canaanites. With nowhere else to go and a cabal of mourning mothers pushing them the elders re-established contact with the New Canaanites, who welcomed them back like nothing had happened. A small group of elders met the Canaanites in secret inside a pre-war church the Canaanites had restored near the tribal village.  
The Crazy Horns were terrified. Elder Ramshead trembled. He wouldn’t look at the New Canaanites, instead throwing glances all around the room, looking out windows and flinching from the sky, fearing somehow that Athena’s power was so immense she would tear the roof off the church herself, and crush them all like bugs under her heel.  
Jeremiah Rigdon asked Ramshead what was wrong.  
“The Daughters own to much, capital Rigdon. They kentnis none should. The capital Athena won’t just mortimus here, she’ll nuke the land,” Ramshead sobbed.  
“You’ve made a covenant with darkness. You have allied yourselves with the beast, this demon known as the ‘goddess.’ She has turned you away from the light of God. But the goddess has no power against the Godly, as the beast has no power against the might of God. You are safe here,” Jeremiah’s booming voice filled the church, his confidence giving his words the weight to calm the elders of the Crazy Horns.  
Jeremiah made the elders pledge loyalty to god and Joseph Smith in order to help them. They baptized them all there in the church according to secret Latter Day Saints Tradition, a ritual so austere and sacred the elders had no choice but to submit themselves body and soul to Jeremiah Rigdon and the Mormon church. As they were submerged underwater in the basin above the brass bulls, the blight of their worries was washed away. They were filled with the cleansing light of god.  
“God is mighty, and He will triumph over the seducer,” Jeremiah assured them, “We will carry out God’s will and cast her out like the whore she is with muscle and steel.”  
Tribesman Too Much secretly ushered the elders back to the village. He witnessed their transformation, from cowering slaves to defiant elders, people ready to retake their lives. He also couldn’t help but note the markings of Canaan they had brought back on their bodies. He wondered if they had not traded one master for another.


	20. Atia, Queen of The Legion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Julia makes a friend

Atia, Queen of The Legion  
Atia had been a slave, a personal consort to the Centurion Aurelius of Phoenix. Aurelius suffered some slight defeat, just a breach of conduct, merely some personal shame that did not reflect on the Legion as a whole. His record was previously spotless, and his offense private, so he was allowed to live, but as punishment Caesar stripped him of his personal slaves, and to humiliate him released them from their bondage.  
They were numbering six, mostly girls, long since broken by the Legion. They had suffered monstrous indignities for the sake of what little comfort the Legion provided and now they were without even that. Five of them, left alone in the wasteland having long forgotten how to survive, died quickly. Atia was different, however. She was not the oldest nor the youngest. She was not the smartest or the strongest. She wasn't toughest or meanest, but unlike her doomed companions she was pregnant. The child was possibly the Centurion's, possibly not. He had allowed favored guests the full 'use' of her and her companions, and she in quiet rebellion had fornicated with any Legionary she could behind his back. She didn't know who the father was but she wasn't going to let her child die.  
In a month death seemed certain, though. She was out of food. She was out of water. She didn't know where she was. She was delirious and unarmed. Her feet were swelling up and her back was shuddering in painful spasms. She could go no further and collapsed on the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust in a ring around her body. She breathed the breath she assumed to be her last.  
She assumed death felt like a cool splash of water but it turned out to instead actually be a cool splash of water. Someone was pouring water on her, clean water. She didn't know how long it had been since she'd collapsed.  
Julia poured a bottle of purified water on the pregnant woman's face. Her eyelids fluttered and she looked up at Julia, with either an expression of gratitude or resentment. Julia crouched over her prone form, examining her. She was very thin, clearly malnourished. Also dehydrated. Her skin was very red, likely a sunburn. She also likely had heatstroke. She was about seven months pregnant, maybe only six. She was showing but it was exaggerated by her malnourishment. Her clothes were simple, a thin synthetic polyester dress tied to her body by a leather belt. She was pretty, in a thin-lipped aristocratic way. The ghost of her luxurious platinum-blonde hair still clung to her head. She had been sheltered, whoever she was.  
“You need to eat something,” Julia told her, handing her a bit of grilled toad meat, “Not too much.”  
Atia took the meat and ate it, in small bites. The woman in the giant coat gave her some more water, urging her to drink slowly. The food and the water hurt to swallow but she was so hungry she didn't care. “Who are you?” Atia asked the woman helping her.  
Julia didn't know how to respond. She still wasn't sure exactly how much she was going to help this woman, how much she wanted this stranger to know. She sighed and sat down. “My name is Julia. And you?”  
Atia sat up, supporting herself on quaking arms. “I am Atia, consort to Aurelius of Phoenix, mother of his child,” she announced with regal authority, “Or, uh, I was,” she admitted. Her arms gave way and she laid down on the dirt again, much more gently this time. Julia couldn't help but think she was pretty conceited for a nearly-dead former sex slave.  
She stayed with Atia for hours, nursing her back to health. They talked when Atia was strong enough and when she wasn't Julia just sat with her, rubbing her back absentmindedly. Atia told Julia about her old tribe, about their defeat by Caesar, about her imprisonment. Her tribe was conquered when she was ten years old. That was sixteen years ago.  
“At first they made me do functionary work, because I can read and write. That wasn't so bad, I didn't have to lift stuff, I just had to write and, like, organize files,” Atia could sit up by her own power now, “I got beat up all the time, obviously. But I was treated way better than other slaves. I had an important job, I was the record-keeper. I was smarter and more valuable than most of the Legion. I was in charge of the beating heart of the Legion!” she grew excited, waving her arms. Julia asked her to drink some more water.  
“Troop movements, surveillance records, codes for runners, quartermaster supplies,” Atia ticked each off on her fingers, “I had access to all of it. I knew who was doing what where and when in the entire Legion. I wasn't in the nerve center, I was the nerve center.”  
“And then I got pretty,” she hissed, “I was... sixteen. I was still working as record-keeper. I was practically second to Caesar himself! I had Centurions and Decanus and Praetorians trading me favors for favors, for better assignments and better gear. I was living well, better than I had it in the tribe. I was Atia, Queen of the Legionaries!”  
“But you grew to be attractive,” Julia tried to distract her from the 'glory' of her old life. Like many other consort and 'hairdresser' slaves Atia had apparently been broken by luxury, promised an 'easy' life in exchange for her autonomy and identity. A much more insidious way to break a slave than simple abuse.  
“How was I supposed to know to hide my body? To disguise my appearance, so I wouldn't be... I wouldn't be...” Atia trailed off. Julia gave her a reassuring embrace, told her she was safe now. Atia's pride wouldn't let her cry but tears collected in the corners of her eyes. She felt her stomach, felt the life inside her. She added, voice full of bitterness and regret, “They took away my eyeglasses.”  
“I think I have just the place for you,” Julia told her. They were only a few days from Ouroboros. Julia supported Atia most of the way there.


	21. Concern Poker

Concern Poker  
Julia's team beat her to Ouroboros by a week and a half, unaware that she had been slowed down by a very pregnant companion. They marched double time the whole way, without stopping, for two whole days. Once they arrived they had to just wait around for their captain to return, nervously telling the Goddess that Julia had dismissed them all and told them to meet her back at Ouroboros. They were following orders.  
After a week went by of following orders Avata was at her wit's end with worry, but the team tracker, Bella, wisely advised her that Julia could hold her own, and she would be embarrassed if they went out to find her.  
“If you rode out into the wastes to 'rescue' me because I was gone for a week, Avi, I'd kill you,” Bella said, then added, “And Jules is much prouder than I am.”  
So Julia's girls all sat on their hands and sweat bullets; after Avata's embarrassing outburst none of them were willing to admit their concern for the captain, fearing a display of doubt in their leader would make them all look weak or undermine the captain's authority. It was a game Julia's girls all played amongst themselves, a sort of poker where all their faces betrayed nothing but confidence and their cards all held nothing but doubt. Julia didn't know it but in this game of one-uping poker she'd gone all-in.  
Avata had already lost. The game had precipitated with her loss of the game. Without a loser there could be no winners. Gillian, Marceline, Tiegan, and Bella all put on their faces for four days, made it very clear they had absolute faith in their captain's ability to survive in the wasteland with little to no supplies, that whatever was delaying her return was not difficulty but distraction, idle games she was playing. Julia's arrival assured her the pot, she was the only winner of this game she didn't know she was playing, everyone else was just playing not to lose.  
So they went about their days idly. Tiegan worked non-stop in the machine shop, re-coding the Daughter's robots to be more efficient. The Goddess had expressly established the Daughter's robot division specifically to counter Caesar's technophobia. Julia's Maenads had been dispatched to the Burning Springs with orders to pillage and plunder, returning with a generous bounty of robots without any programming practical to the Daughter's needs. A coalition of mining robots equipped with thick armor and rock-cutting lasers and with absolutely no concept of a reality outside of the Springs. Tiegan was busy.  
The other girls were not so lucky. Gillian continued to work as a medic, acting as a nurse to the Daughters, but she just ended up supporting the phalanx of medical robots the Goddess already deployed. She did not appreciate playing second-fiddle to a Mr. Orderly.  
Bella and Marceline busied themselves with patrol duty, but because of strict orders to not raise any suspicion they couldn't kill anything, and were forced to simply sit and watch the Legion make camp not six hundred yards from Ouroboros (give or take a few rock formations). Bella grew so bored she lured a bunch of giant desert frogs to the Legion camp but they mostly just killed slaves. In any case it was enough to get the Legion to leave, but she was chastised for inspiring curiosity.  
Avata, having already lost the little bluffing game the other girls were engaged in was free to express herself fully, able to voice her concern and wait for Julia at the gate. For four days she sat and worried, worried and sat and occasionally drank a bit. She had no busywork to distract her but she was the only one who didn't feel the need to be distracted. The other girls would visit her periodically and tease her, secretly jealous that they too could not sit with her and wait for their captain.  
Bella saw her first, rather than Avata, but that had always been her and Marcie's secret plan. They patrolled every day but patrolled most heavily where Julia would make her approach. So it came that Bella was the first to see the captain come back, the first to meet the captain's new guest.  
“Did you miss me?” Julia asked her as she shifted Atia over to Marcie's shoulders.  
“Not at all captain,” Bella smiled.


	22. Twisted Up

Twisted Up  
Word spread quickly of Julia's return. As they followed the path up to Ouroboros they were joined by other Daughters, girls of all ages and stripes. Atia was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of women greeting her and Julia. It was unlike anything she had ever seen before. In the Legion and even in her tribe women had never been allowed to congregate without the supervision of men, although in the Legion perhaps there had been as diverse a collection of women, as the Daughters much like the Legion seemed to be made up of people from all different tribes.  
There were Daughters with intricate facial tattoos, Daughters wearing elaborate headdresses, Daughters with unusual piercings. A woman Julia called Two-Spear had nails stuck through her nose, eyebrows, and ears. There was no uniform, although everyone appeared to be dressed very, very well. Not just compared to her own sad rags, which she had been taught again and again were the clothes of a slave, but even compared to the finery of the Centurions. All of these women were wearing clothes and armor nicer and better taken care of than anything in the Legion. Every Daughter of Hecate they met on the short trip back to Ouroboros was clean, healthy, and happy. They were all beautiful, all smiling. They all loved Julia.  
Atia couldn't remember the last time she'd smiled.  
Julia didn't have much time to bask in the Daughter's adoration, she barely had time to be welcomed back by her own team. She had been absent for more than two weeks and she needed to check in with the Goddess. She left Atia with Gillian and the Mr. Orderlys and entered the Goddess's ziggurat.  
She found The Goddess Hecate in the central chamber, a massive room surrounded by columns and the gallery where the Daughters gathered to make decisions and hear proposals. Rather than taking her usual place in the highest and grandest chair of the gallery, Hecate was instead sitting on the floor of the forum, in the center of the circle designed into the floor.  
“Siddown, michoo, mi bellichoo. Mama darcanno two altheways,” the Goddess spoke to Julia in the Twisted Hair's tribal language. Julia was always caught off-guard by this familiarity the Goddess shared with her, even though she remembered the Goddess from before she was Hecate, when they were Twisted Hairs together.  
“Marra you too, mother,” she said. The Goddess was an interesting beauty. She had dreadlocks that fell to her feet, her proud reminder of her history as a Twisted Hair. The way she was sitting on the floor her dreadlocks obscured her body entirely. She kept incense in the dreads, the cloud of smoke they created combined with the concealing effects of her hair contributed to her aura of mystery and power. Although she was actually rather small sitting on the floor her fire filled the entire room.  
“I'mmaheard two ademist altheways them gehennas aldown the Springsway, michoo,” the first order of business was a report on Burham Springs, even if it was discussed informally.  
“You herddittall, mama, lest anyways iunno twoan ademisathingilikke gehennas, thingslike ant vida, y'kno. Ifigirs somits like ademisen' asee, guessin gehennas got nervis somewhere bee,” although she spoke it very rarely after she had left the tribe, Julia slipped naturally back into the lyrical and poetic language of her former people. She was surprised at how quickly the words came out of her mouth, and reminded herself most of the Twisted Hair language was derivative of english, which is why it had been so easy for the Twisted Hairs to communicate with Caesar's Legion so many years ago.  
They continued to talk undisturbed in their tribal prose for awhile longer, discussing the events of Burham Springs and the plunder Julia's maenads had gathered from its mines. The Goddess pressed Julia on her extended absence, and scolded her for making her girls worry.  
“Avata like a dog wayout for the gate, sidindown esperran poortwo,” she chided.  
“Altheways twisdedup, mama,” Julia apologized, “My arrival was slowed by a companion.”  
The Goddess asked her to elaborate.  
“I met a young pregnant woman on my way back, a former slave, mother. I decided to bring her to Ouroboros with me,” Julia explained no further and Hecate seemed placated by this answer, either forgetting or deciding not to ask Julia why she had dismissed her maenads and returned without them in the first place. Instead she grew serious.  
“Daughter, I'm glad you've returned,” she spoke very gravely, in english, “I want you to remain by my side in Ouroboros, and let Daughter Bella take over your maenads.”  
Julia was again taken aback.  
“Of course, mother, anything you say,” she answered.  
“Good. I want you to be the second-in-command of my Daughters,” Hecate told Julia, “There are many things you can do for me here. But first, I must show you something.”


	23. All the Ways

All The Ways  
The Goddess rose to her feet, ushering Julia to step outside of the chamber's central circle, then began to dance. The rhythm was simple, a step, a clap, and a shuffle, and she did it several times along the edge. At the end of every other clap she would shuffle her foot onto one of the thirteen stars surrounding and Julia realized she was entering a code.  
When the dance finished she'd pressed all thirteen stars with her foot in a specific order and they lit up. She then took a bag of red sand and smeared a letter 'E' into the center of the circle. She gestured for Julia to join her and Julia complied. The circle descended as the Goddess spoke.  
"After the wolf killed our people, I encountered a place I had never been before. It was strange, full of life yet cold. I learned many things there, including the existence of this place. After accepting the name Hecate, I decided that this would be my temple."  
They descended deeper and deeper, lit by long columns of light. Julia watched the Goddess. She was shorter than Julia, prematurely stooped at a young age by tribal life. The elevator stopped in front of a huge steel door. Julia felt a chill in her bones.  
"Mama, what is this?" she whispered.  
"God," Hecate replied.  
She opened the huge steel doors with a wave of her hand. They receded to reveal rows upon rows of chemical storage barrels. An endless corridor of chemicals, all unlabeled and unsecured. Julia felt her blood go cold.  
"Within this chamber and the chambers below it are the most deadly biological weapons the old world left us. Smallpox, malaria, the bubonic plague, anthracnose, agent orange," the Goddess turned to look Julia in the eyes as she spoke, pontificating warmly about the room full of death they had entered. "But this is not all that lies underneath Ouroboros. For every weapon there is a beneficial chemical. Pesticides. Insulin. Albuterol. I say this is God, because within these walls there is death but there is also life. Boundless life."  
As Hecate gestured to drums and drums of what was likely DDT Julia looked at her, really, truly looked at her. Despite being years older than Julia and being hunched over like an old woman Hecate was actually vibrant and full of life. She seemed young and healthy. By a trick of her face she appeared to be younger than Julia, even. Her wide-set eyes and round cheeks gave her a childlike appearance, and as Julia studied her she came to the conclusion that if it weren't for her seemingly-immedicable stoop Hecate could easily be confused for Julia's younger sister. Despite her suffering she still had a deep-rooted innocence that she hid in her role as Goddess behind a thick curtain of dreadlocks.  
"Half of it has soured, lost its capacity to kill or heal to the entropy of time, but half is more than enough. This is the source of my power, the well I draw from when I want to exercise control over the pitiable tribes of the wasteland," Hecate's words seemed hollow and staged. She sounded completely unlike herself. Julia realized that she had prepared this speech. She was trying to impress Julia! This woman who had the authority to poison the entire wasteland three times over was trying to look smart in front of her favorite daughter. Julia was humbled. She listened patiently to Hecate's description of the secret vault beneath Ouroboros, asking pertinent questions until she arrived at the most pertinent question of all.  
"Mama, why did you bring me here?"  
"Because, my child, as I have done, so will you," and with that Julia became the second most powerful person in Ouroboros.


	24. Bitter Drink

Bitter Drink  
Blood and fire, ash and wind. First the ashes of men, disintegrated by the goddess's servants, then the ashes of plants, as they burned in the fields. The Twin Mothers were used to this. Attacks came frequently, and the fields had known destruction many times before. Eldron could only shake his head and sigh. There hadn't been a raid in quite a while, two months at least, but he knew it was just a matter of time. The whole tribe felt it coming, felt the change in the winds. First the goddess vanished, right after the last raid by the Scorpion's Bite. Helea held the tribe together in that time of tribulation, acting as representative of the goddess in absentia.  
She was so strong for the tribe in the time of its greatest crisis, that when the goddess returned Helea should have relaxed and returned to her old, happy self. She convened in secret with the goddess, and on the outside she seemed just as spirited as ever but over her hung a dark shadow. The shadow grew and grew until Helea was almost like death, a dark shade haunting the tribe. Everyone felt the tension and fear, especially when the annual Ogre migration didn't happen.  
The Ogres visited the Twin Mothers the same time every year. When the tribe was very young they feared them, but the goddess taught them to respect the Ogres and the Ogres respected them. The huge, furry monsters generally kept the area clean of other predators, and largely ignored the Twin Mothers crops. Occasionally they up and died by the Twin Mothers village, providing the tribe with a good source of supplementary food. They discovered just how much they'd come to rely on Ogre meat when there wasn't any around.  
Bad omens swirled in the air for weeks, and the Twin Mothers grew restless. Some in the tribe wanted to hunt, to go and find the Ogres or anything else, kill it and bring back the meat. The general consensus spoke out against it, though, and the goddess agreed. The Twin Mothers were to remain pacifists, no matter what.  
When the new raid finally came Eldron breathed a sigh of relief. There were a lot of them, certainly, at least four hundred men had come to raid the Twin Mothers, but whether it was twenty men or twenty thousand, the routine was always the same. They came, they burned the fields, the Twin Mothers withdrew into their cliff home, they left, the Twin Mothers rebuilt the fields. That was how it had been for generations, and now seemed no different, save the foreboding omens.  
The men gathered at the base of the Twin Mothers home, established tents and began a routine patrol. Some gave orders and some followed orders, some wore armor and others wore rags. They established camp and there they stayed. And stayed. And stayed. A week went by. That wasn't so strange. The Scorpion's Bite had stuck around for approximately a week and a half. The Twin Mothers had enough food to last for more than a month. Yet still the men stayed. Two weeks went by. The men established an arena and began to fight in it daily. Eldron laughed at this.  
“You see, two men enter and one man leaves. That's what violence gets you. They'll deplete themselves before we run out of food,” he told his wife, the leader of the tribe.  
Still the men remained, and despite their near-constant fighting amongst themselves did not deplete. Men came and men went, they brought women and their camp grew more solid and permanent. After three weeks, robots from the goddess arrived. They were defeated, surrounded and set upon with a fury and violence the Twin Mothers could not comprehend. Some of the men tore the goddess' robots apart with their bare hands, and attached the pieces of metal to their own armor, gaily draped in the skins of their enemies. Four weeks went by and still the men remained. The Twin Mothers turned to their goddess for help.  
“Oh great Diana, we need your guidance. These men have come from parts unknown and they behave unlike any raiders we have seen before. We do not wish to violate your doctrine of pacifism, but we see no other alternative. Our stores are running out!” Alaya, Eldron's wife asked the goddess in her shrine for help, as Helea had cut herself off from the tribe, and had possibly already starved to death.  
The goddess appeared before her, but her appearance was different somehow. She was not the shining light, the tall woman with the golden halo. She looked smaller, darker. This terrified Alaya more than anything else in the past few months.  
The goddess Diana flickered and wavered, and only said one thing to Alaya before disappearing completely. She said, “Run.”  
But there was nowhere to go.


	25. A Good Warrior

A Good Warrior  
He couldn't see. He couldn't see, and the other man was coming for him. He couldn't feel the blows anymore, he staggered back and forth, he held his hands up and when the blur of the other man came into his tunneled sight he swung but he could barely feel if his hits connected or not. There was blood on his face, blood on his knuckles, blood in his boots.  
It started almost as soon as they established camp in the Twin Mothers basin. Decanus Cassiel began with snide remarks, suggesting loudly that the Dead Souls should be kept not with the other contubernias but in the animal pen. Mortuus ignored him, all of his men were used to similar treatment by their peers. Typically the jeers and insults would cease after the other Legionaries saw them in battle, but Twin Mothers was a different battlefield. The Dead Souls were a different contubernia.  
It used to be they were the first into the fray and the last out. No centurion wanted authority of the loathsome Dead Souls and it became almost a game to see who could kill them. If it was an insane risk with no chance of survival the Dead Souls were sent to do it.  
Eventually, though, a funny thing happened. The Dead Souls kept coming back. They survived, they grew tougher and meaner, they stopped being such expendable assets. Centurions began to hold them back from the front lines. They were valuable Legionaries, if only just. It took much longer for their veteran statuses to be recognized than it did for other Legionaries, but it happened. The Dead Souls were too valuable to waste as cannon fodder for the guns of a few security robots.  
They didn't participate in the early battle and by the time they were assaulted by a fresh platoon of security robots there were too many Legionaries for the Dead Souls to distinguish themselves. They all just sat and looked ugly and invited slurs and hatred in the Twin Mothers basin Legion Camp. Leading the harassment was Veteran Decanus Cassiel.  
In the beginning Cassiel's campaign was limited to loudly making rude comments, or casually insulting Mortuus and his men. Nothing the Dead Souls hadn't heard before, even as the volume steadily increased. As the days wore on the other contubernias began throwing trash at Mortuus' ghouls, or anyone seen with the ghouls. They destroyed the Dead Soul's tents, again and again, defacing them with filth and garbage. All this and the Dead Souls would've been fine, if it weren't for the whispers.  
When they first made camp after burning the Twin Mothers crops they began to hear her, although no-one knew what was happening at first. The whispers filled everyone's heads, but everyone refused to acknowledge the whispers for fear that they were the only one. It seemed as though a beautiful woman's voice was talking to them.  
“Turn back,” was the first message, a soft whisper so quiet it was almost silent yet so insistent it could not be ignored.  
“There is nothing for you here,” she continued.  
“You have nothing to gain.”  
The Legate made an official announcement, explaining that there was actually a woman whispering to the whole camp. He told the Legionaries her whispers were lies, and should be ignored. That it was a simple trick of the Twin Mothers, and was no threat to the Legion's might. All they had to do was ignore the voice, and soon it would stop, and the Twin Mothers would fall.  
But it didn't stop. It grew more aggressive the longer they camped in the basin. She whispered to them every day, scathing insults and repeated discouragements meant to break their spirits.  
“You are a tool, a weak puppet being manipulated by those who don't care whether you live or die. You are a simple tool, a blunt instrument with no thoughts of your own, no reason or creativity. You are not a man, you might as well be dead!”  
Most Legionaries just shrugged it off at first, of course they were being used by men who didn't care whether they lived or died, that was central to the Legion's philosophy. No man was given the right to live, it was earned through conquest. Yet as she repeated it, again and again, the men began to falter. Some fled, only to be brought back and executed. After fleeing proved to be futile the men simply started killing themselves outright. The Malpais and his centurions began to make speeches everyday, boasting of the greatness of the Legion and the strength and abilities of its Legionaries. Morale-boosting became the number one concern of the elites, and contests of strength were organized, the winners rewarded handsomely with food and women. They kept their losses to about a man a day.  
No-one got it worse than the Dead Souls, who were on the receiving end of discouragement and insults from the whispers and their peers. The tension grew, and one day Reave broke. They sat down to eat cold rations from the previous meal and the whispering began. It was never clear if the whispers were consistent for all Legionaries or if each man heard their own.  
“You are a simple tool, a blunt instrument wielded by scarred and blighted hands. All you sow is death and all you shall reap is death. There are no great rewards for the tools of a blighted hand,” was what Mortuus heard. He turned to Reave, who was ashen-faced. Reave looked at Mortuus directly in the eyes as he pulled out a pistol and shot himself through the head.  
Decanus Cassiel was not as physically imposing as Mortuus Anima, possibly some deeply disguised insecurity stemming from such motivated his zealous animosity. He was certainly not a small man, though, it was just compared to Mortuus Anima that most Legionaries looked smaller. In any case he was the only Legionary willing to accept Mortuus' challenge in the arena. He was also the first to be challenged by Mortuus, who did not follow protocol by walking into Cassiel's tent and punching him in the face.  
They donned their gladiator gear for the fight. It was the biggest crowd the camp had seen since establishment. Both men opted to fight without machetes. Although Cassiel was smaller and not as tough as Mortuus he was faster, and they were evenly matched. For every blow Mortuus struck against Cassiel, Cassiel struck two blows against Mortuus. Every grapple Mortuus trapped Cassiel in, Cassiel wormed his way out. The battle continued on longer than any fight Mortuus had engaged in since turning seventeen.  
They were both bloody and beaten. Each man staggered on his feet, breathing hard, no longer feeling the blows. No longer caring. It all ended in a single blow. Cassiel retreated to the edge of the fighting pit, close to where he could hear the jeers and calls of the watching Legionaries distantly through his cauliflower-ed ears. He gathered all his strength, staring furiously at the hulking black figure in front of him and charged. Mortuus could barely see him, but with the shaky agility of a man without any energy left jumped back, grabbed Cassiel's arm and snapped it, pushing Cassiel to the ground. The fight was over. Cassiel lay bruised and broken, his crimson blood slowly pooling around him. But he was alive.  
“Finish him,” the Legate ordered Mortuus. Mortuus, unsteady on his feet and trying to wipe his own blood out of his eyes looked at the Legate, and with all the defiance he could muster said one word.  
“No.”  
It was unprecedented. No Legionary defied their superior, much less the Legate himself. Mortuus might as well have defied Caesar. The crowd around the fighting arena was stunned. Where there had once been raucous noise that could be heard all the way up the cliff-face there was now silence. Everyone wondered what the Legate would do.  
“It is the law of the Legion. You have bested this Legionary in the arena, you must kill him,” the Legate said, calmly but firmly.  
“He's a good warrior. I don't want to kill a good warrior,” Mortuus told his commander. During their battle Mortuus had developed a grudging respect for Cassiel that he could not deny, even in the face of Legion authority.  
“He is not fit to be a Legionary. If you disobey, you are not fit to be a Legionary, and you both shall die,” The Legate did not raise his voice, he did not reprimand Mortuus. He simply reminded Mortuus Anima the way of Caesar's Legion. There was no arguing.  
Mortuus sighed and limped over to Cassiel's prone body. He picked up the fallen decanus, and twisted the man's neck until it snapped. The spectators cheered, except for the Legate, who merely watched. Watched and contemplated.


	26. The Flag-Bearer

The Flag-Bearer  
The commander's tent of the Malpais Legate was spartan but efficient, a reflection of its owner. There were no ornaments or fineries, no luxuries. Nothing but instruments of war. Charts, maps, and enough weapons to supply a Centuriae, all organized in various states of repair. There appeared to not even be a cot for sleeping, so efficiently utilized was the space. In truth the Malpais slept on crates of ammunition. He was a hard, prickly man, and to earn his respect was more difficult than conquering a hundred tribes. The Flag-Bearer was one of the few to draw his praise.  
He entered the Malpais' tent silently, patiently waiting for the Legate to acknowledge his presence. The Legate ignored him for some time, absorbed in the fastidious cleaning of a machete gladius. Without looking up the Legate spoke in his intimidating baritone.  
“There are six things the lord hateth,” the flickering light of the torch lamps made him into a silhouette, his back turned to the Flag-Bearer, “and the seventh his soul detesteth.”  
The Flag-Bearer assumed the Legate was referring to Caesar every time he talked about the lord. It was a grandiloquent way to discuss the head of the bull, befitting of a man whose legend was growing from the bones of the wasteland like the thorny vines that seemed to be the only crop in the four former states.  
“The seventh,” the Legate continued, polishing the gladius with a bloody rag soaked in oil, “is him that soweth discord among brethren.”  
The Flag-Bearer remained silent. The Legate set down the Gladius. He slowly rose from his chair, “'In whose heart is perverseness, who deviseth evil continually, and who soweth discord.'”  
“Gloria Mars,” the Flag-Bearer knelt when the Legate turned to face him.  
“Report, Flag-Bearer.”  
“I have done as you asked. I have seen the whisper's source, I have no doubt,” the Flag-Bearer rose to his feet, standing slightly taller than the Legate, but not prouder. “I followed the robots' trail to a fertile valley. It is a place not meant for my eyes, nor for the eyes of any man. Had it not been my orders, I should never have looked at all, and even as I did I quickly looked away.”  
The Flag-Bearer recalled the valley from which the security robots that had attacked the camp originated from and even in memory he could barely stand it. It was a place of unstained beauty, a place unfit for the wasteland. He knew in revealing its location to his brothers he had assured its destruction. Another burden for his soul to bear in service to his Legion, a burden he carried proudly if not sadly.  
“The eyes of God see all,” the Legate said cryptically, then turning away said, “Thank you Flag-Bearer. You are dismissed for now.”  
The Flag-Bearer made a polite bow and left the Legate's tent. The Legate then called in his quartermaster.  
As soon as the quartermaster entered the commander's tent the Legate demanded to know, “How much napalm is left in our stores?”


	27. A Simple Tool

A Simple Tool  
The Legion burned the Nursery to the ground. All of it. All of the trees, all of the bushes, all of the crops and flowers and vines. They smashed open the greenhouses. They slaughtered the animals, they butchered the very last non-mutated cow in the American wasteland. They collapsed the repository, assuring that non-mutated cow would never be born again. In the factory they smashed GECK after GECK after GECK. When they lit the napalm that reduced it all to cinders a shrill metallic screech exploded from the control tower, a noise so loud and steady it sounded like a siren but was actually the shrill and bitter wail of the Goddess Diana.  
Flames licked the tower. Flames licked the walls of the valley. Flames licked the face of the Flag-Bearer, who watched it all and did nothing. He led the Legionaries to the Nursery then watched unmovingly as they destroyed every piece of it.  
Mortuus Anima, the Dead Soul, led the charge into the control tower. They pried the doors open and smashed the security robots waiting inside. They tore down monitors and pried open computer banks, but it did nothing to quell the screaming of the Goddess. As they made their way deeper into the tower they could discern the words she screamed at them.  
“FOULWASTEDMISERABLEGRATINGWHORECHILDRENSPOILINGTHETREASURESOFTHEWASTEYOUWILLNEVERKNOWTHEDEPTHSOFYOURDISGUSTINGWRETCHEDPUTREDMISERABLEDISGUSTINGDISEASEDTORTURESYOUIGNORANTSIMPLEWASTEDSLIME,” it pierced their ears and made them wince. The entire tower seemed to shake wrathfully so brutal and unrelenting was her metallic cry. Yet still they continued further into the central chamber of the control tower until they were at the door leading to Diana's ZAX mainframe.   
When they pried the door open half the men retreated in fear, as it appeared an Alpha Deathclaw was waiting for them on the other side. Mortuus Anima gripped his fire ax and defiantly strode through the Deathclaw, into a room full of unimaginable horrors. The central room of the control tower mirrored the chaos and horror outside, with bright black flames as tall as Mortuus and the burned and dismembered corpses of countless animals wailing and clawing at him but it was all illusions, projections that Mortuus ignored as he carefully and deliberately strode towards the ZAX mainframe disguised as a forty-foot-tall woman bathed in golden light, her face contorted in pain and wrath as she screamed.  
“FOULVILEPUSTULOUSBILESUCKINGSCUMYOUWILLDIEALONEANDUNLOVEDBROKENANDBEATENANDSTARVEDBYYOUROWNHANDSFORGOTTENANDALONEANDDESPISEDBYYOURLOVERSANDOFFSPRING,” the woman screeched at him as he walked step-by-step, sweat running down his face towards her.  
He knew she couldn't hear him, yet as he raised his ax he spoke, “A simple tool,” he sneered and then brought the axe down upon the illusory Goddess' ankle, directly into the ZAX's monitor bank.  
“A SIMPLE TOOL,” he screamed as the illusions flickered in and out, as the Goddess stopped screaming and tried to swat him aside with her hand but the hand just passed through him, “A SIMPLE TOOL!” he screamed as tears welled in his eyes and he brought the ax down again and again, “A. SIMPLE. TOOL.”  
The illusions flickered away, the Goddess's plaintive cries to stop cut in and out with each blow of the ax. Sparks flew from the ZAX mainframe as the circuitry was bashed to pieces. Just before the final blow, as the Goddess Diana flickered in and out one final time, Mortuus muttered, “A simple tool can bring down a God.”  
He delivered the killing blow to the mangled machinery, threw his ax to the ground, and walked away in disgust. The Twin Mothers surrendered the next day.


	28. Viva Las Vegas

Viva Las Vegas  
“Twenty minutes to showtime, ladies!” Hadrian strode through the backstage. Girls sat at a long row of mirrors applying thick layers of makeup, dressing up in sequined unitards and ridiculous feathered hats. Eunuch guards stood at the door of the dressing room, turning away desperate and horny Legionaries. One centurion wouldn't take “By order of Caesar” as an excuse and had to be beaten up and carried away. Dozens of young men flitted back and forth carrying instruments. The air was full of excitement and tension.  
In her own private dressing room Julia Aram applied spirit gum to her shaved head and affixed her black toupee. This was the big show, and it had to be perfect.  
“What do you think?” she turned around and asked Hadrian.  
“I think it's perfect. I think it's perfect so long as it doesn't fall off when you're prancing around out there,” he cattily replied, “You have the steps memorized?”  
“I could do the whole routine blindfolded,” Julia tested the strength of her wig, “Hardly matters anyway. The audience isn't going to look away from the showgirl tits.” She checked the tape binding her own chest down.  
“Caesar proves once again you can build an empire around dirty old men,” Hadrian quipped and kissed Julia on the top of the head, “Go out and slay him.”  
It was a brilliant plan. It was so brilliant it barely needed the intervention of the Daughters at all, but the Goddess didn't gamble. She had a mind like a steel trap and very little that went on in the wasteland escaped her notice. Julia knew that Hecate was just a woman, she knew that when most other Daughters didn't. Julia had seen Hecate at her very worst, weak and scared and powerless. But Julia had also seen the Goddess as she scoured over her Daughter's tribal reports, had seen the Goddess bit by bit build a comprehensive and total image of the wasteland. Built it not like a picture, not a static image, but like a machine, with living and interacting parts. Julia had seen the Goddess conjure the entire four corners wasteland in front of her, and then tweak it, giving some and taking some away, watching events ripple outwards, predicting what would happen and generally playing with people's lives like dolls. It was in those moments, where Hecate towered over the wasteland and sculpted it to suit her, Julia couldn't help but feel like she was really in the presence of a deity.  
“Everyone get in position!” Hadrian barked. Everyone involved in the production except the eunuch guards provided by Caesar were Daughters or Hounds of Hecate. They'd all been cherry-picked by the Goddess herself for this mission. Julia had been given the lead role not simply because of her charisma and dedication but so the Goddess' second-in-command could be there if anything went wrong. Hecate didn't want any part of the plan to go awry, even though in all actuality the stakes were very low. It was almost as though she wanted to show off for her enemy, even though she made sure he didn't even know she existed. As far as Caesar knew he would not be watching trained killers and dedicated cultists performing ancient rock 'n roll in a rebuilt theatre in Phoenix, but a simple band of skilled traveling performers. Even though he'd never know it was by her command, Hecate was determined to make sure he was completely blown away by her followers.  
Julia stood behind the set as the curtain drew open. She heard Hadrian welcome the Legion's elite to the performance. Hadrian made a joke and the Legionaries laughed. The lights came up and the music turned on. Everything but the conga drums was pre-recorded and being played through the speakers. Julia burst out of the saloon door mock-up set and began lip synching to a three-hundred year old song.  
Julia had been to the ruins of Las Vegas only once, on her return trip from the Divide. She'd avoided it on her way to the Hopeville, warned well in advance of how dangerous it was. A few tribal gangs held different parts of the city. It was a cruel place that held none of the glitz and glamor the song publicized. Maybe somewhere deep in the Sawneys or Slither Kin territory there was a shadow of the bright light city but it was unlikely given how predatory and vicious the tribes she remembered were.  
Besides being startlingly maintained for the past few centuries Julia couldn't understand the city's hypnotic power. Everywhere in the Mojave seemed to point towards the ruin, as though some sort of charm spell cast long ago kept drawing people to it. This old world legend of Las Vegas was what Hecate drew on. If the Goddess was right, Vegas would be the death of Caesar and his Legion. Julia had no doubt of that.  
She looked out into the crowd but it was too dark to find the face of Caesar. Would he get the message? Would it seep into his skull, trick him into desiring the miserable pit of the Mojave? Had he already been planning to march across the Colorado? Was he enjoying the show?  
It hardly mattered. The song finished, the stage lights went out and the Legion hooted and cheered. Even if Caesar now felt the subliminal compulsion to conquer Vegas, it would take years for him to act on it. There were more shows, more psychological warfare to be made. It was a long con, but Rome wasn't destroyed in a day.


	29. Statues

Statues  
Atia gave birth to a healthy baby boy via c-section. She was only pregnant in Ouroboros for two and a half months, and she spent most of that time off her feet. She was given accommodations amongst the other pregnant women in a maternity ward that she learned was of particular religious significance to the Daughters of Hecate.  
She learned from her ward-mates about the highly formalized and practiced ritual of conception within the Daughters. All pairings were organized by the Goddess herself, and to have a child that was not sanctioned by Hecate was blaspheme. Atia was terrified that she would be forced to give up her baby. Unbeknownst to her she was supposed to have an abortion in order to stay with the Daughters, but Julia interceded on her behalf.  
Atia was still scared of the strange world she had been brought into. After she was outed as a blasphemer none of the other women in her ward would talk to her. She was alone in what at first seemed like a very inviting place, but which had turned out to be unfriendly. Thankfully, Julia visited her regularly.  
“Don't worry,” Julia comforted her, “Once you have your kid everything will get better. You can see the baths, the gardens, the library...”  
“What's a library?” Atia interjected.  
“A library?” Julia sipped on her coffee. Whenever she was in Ouroboros Julia wore her facepaint, as was respectful to the Goddess. She also preferred to be shirtless. She spent so much time away from Ouroboros, weeks spent without taking off her armor even to sleep, that she tried to wear as little clothing as possible when she was back in the fold. Her right breast had been tattooed with a swirl when she was still a Twisted Hair, and her face paint was styled after her tattoo. “A library is where we keep all the books. I'm sure Caesar has one somewhere.”  
“Books!” Atia sat up in shock, “There are books here?!”  
“Oh yeah,” Julia smiled over her cup, “And that isn't all. There's a bar, a dancehall, the hookah room...”  
“I haven't seen a book that wasn't a military ledger in years. I haven't even seen a ledger since I got sold to Aurelius,” Atia reflected sadly. When she was still part of the Fredonians they had a few books that she had poured over, only to watch them thrown into the fire by the Legion.  
“Well, the next time I visit, I'll bring you a book, okay? Any preference?”  
So Julia started bringing books from the library whenever she visited. Atia had not made any preference as to what she wanted to read, so Julia brought her some history books about ancient Rome and Julius Caesar's Commentarii, to educate her on the true history of the Legion. At first Atia was furious, angry that she and the whole wasteland had been deceived. She talked to Julia about it and Julia laughed it off, telling her, “Well now you know. Don't worry about anybody else.”  
“That's, that's... irresponsible! This monster is out there subjugating innocent people because he wants to pretend to be Julius Caesar and you aren't doing anything about it?!” Atia argued.  
“I'm doing plenty about it, okay? We all are. We're working on a new plan to bring Caesar down. In any case, exposing the lie wouldn't change anything. Most fall for the lie pretty damn easily,” Julia muttered. Atia was offended by her insinuation, “I mean to say, most of the Legionaries probably wouldn't care even if they found out Caesar was just a pretender. They'd still go around killing and enslaving.”  
Julia started bringing other books. Some fiction, some non-fiction. Atia read them all hungrily. Sometimes they discussed the books, but other times Julia hadn't read them and they had to talk about other things. Mostly they talked about their lives, funny and sad stories of things they had done or had happened to them. Sometimes Julia helped Atia work through the trauma of being a slave. Once when they were talking (and Atia had just read Huckleberry Finn) they discussed slavery in general.  
“One thing I always wondered, why don't Legion slaves just escape?” Julia asked, “I've seen them in plenty of situations where they're left alone for hours on end, right on the edge of Legion territory. Why don't they just run?”  
Atia was sometimes shocked at how ignorant Julia was, and she had to remind herself that Julia had never experienced life under Legion rule.  
“And go where, exactly?” she asked.  
“I don't know, but if you go far enough west there's a whole nation of people who are free. There's places out there!”  
Atia took a deep breath.  
“When my tribe was defeated, back when it was still the Blackfoot tribe and not 'Caesar's Legion,' they destroyed... everything,” she sighed mournfully, “I don't remember a lot about being a Fredonian, but I will always remember the statues. We had these stone statues, it was this thing the tribe had done for years, everyone decorated their houses with them. Some people had kind of crappy ones but some people had... just really beautiful, really intricate statues. Statues they had spent their whole lives carving. Some were of people, some were of animals, but everyone had their own to be proud of. Your statue was who you were,” Atia made a sad, far-away look, gazing into a place that didn't exist anymore, “Among the Fredonians, your statue was who you were. When the Blackfoots beat us, I mean really beat us, in a way that no tribe had ever defeated another tribe before, the first thing they did was they took everyones' statues, and they smashed them. They picked them up and they threw them on the ground, threw them off the cliff-face, whatever it took to destroy them. That was when we stopped being Fredonians.”  
Julia thought about her own tribe, how after the Legion conquered the Twisted Hairs they probably made everyone cut their hair. She had the sad thought of everyone forced into the meeting circle to have their beautiful dreads hacked off by Legion machetes.  
“For all of us that was home. We didn't know anything else. We had our village, and our hunting ground, and when that was gone we had nothing. The wasteland isn't a place of possibilities, people who left the tribe died out there. We had nowhere to go. So we stayed,” Atia looked back at Julia, “And anyway, there are slaves who try to escape, even still. At least there were before I got sold. They all end up being crucified, but they still try.”  
Julia looked away, and thought sadly for a moment.  
“I'm sorry I asked. It's a painful thing, I understand.”  
“I'm glad you asked,” Atia squeezed Julia's hand, “because you understand now.”  
A week later Atia gave birth. She named her son Julius.


	30. The Hunter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's pronounced "Wenator"

The Hunter  
Centurion Scipio Venator was a patient man. He was a proud man, a strong man with a high arch in his eyebrows and a cruel turn to his lips. He had a glass eye which he tried to hide by squinting all the time. Squinting and scowling, a consummate action hero with a chiseled jaw and grim determination.  
He was more prudent than his peers. It took a tactical mind and a cruel disposition to rise to the ranks of Centurion, but among other Centurions he was perceived as weak. He didn't jump for glory like they did, he wasn't driven to extreme victories against impossible odds at the risk of great loss. He was not decorated, although he had a satisfactory victory record. He was cautious, he waited and he held back to strike at the best moment possible. He did not lack courage, he simply had patience and cunning.  
He looked for patterns, assessed strengths and weaknesses before striking. If it was something to be proud of in the Legion he could have boasted of his success in keeping his Legionaries alive battle after battle but, alas, in the Legion that was a moral and strategic failing. Testing recruits again and again in battle, killing the weak and molding the strong was a central tenant of Caesar's doctrine. He was seen as soft-hearted, a coddler.  
This was not true. If anything the fact that he rarely was actively sending his men to their deaths meant he worked them much harder off the battlefield. Disruptive or disrespectful Legionaries were typically either killed or sent to march under Scipio Venator's banner. The assignment was seen by the Centurions as punishment for Scipio and among the rank-and-file it was seen as punishment for the Legionary. Service for Centurion Venator meant constant exercise, and unlike other Centuriae the Legionaries built their own fortifications and cleaned their own weapons, rather than let their slaves do so.  
It was no surprise the dead souls were transferred to Venator's command. They were a stain on the Legion's purity and Centuriaes traded them as often as possible. Mortuus Anima had served more than two dozen commanders in his nearly twenty-year career in the Legion. None of them were like Scipio Venator.  
Often Centurions were given first pick of slaves when a new batch were conquered, but if Caesar or the Legate were there they took precedence. The Malpais Legate rarely took slaves unless he considered them talented combatants, so it was an unfortunate twist of fate that the victory over the Twin Mothers marked his first selection of a female captive.  
Venator had been selecting specific women from conquered tribes for nearly the past year. In his campaigns he had begun to notice a pattern, in every tribe they conquered there was always one particular woman who didn't quite fit. Her appearance was unlike any other in the tribe, she occasionally would not speak the same language as the tribe. It was as though there was a secret cabal of women operating across dozens of tribes, and Scipio wanted to know why.  
Of course the Legate for the first time ever demanded a female slave, and of course it was the woman who fit Scipio's pattern. A woman named Ruth, who looked nothing like the other members of the tribe and spoke the Twin Mothers dialect with a foreign accent. Scipio could have been killed for requesting Ruth away from the Legate, yet he was too close to the secret of the cabal to pass up the opportunity to interrogate her.  
The Legate seemed displeased at Scipio's request, but relieved that Scipio had the good sense to make the request in private. The Legate acquiesced when Scipio explained he wanted to question her because he suspected she was part of a threat to the Legion, but he made one demand.  
“You are to accept the contubernia known as the dead souls, under Mortuus Anima. You are to retain them until they die in your service,” the Legate demanded. Scipio agreed to his terms.  
Mortuus Anima accompanied Scipio to the interrogation. He stood behind the Centurion, who sat facing the woman still wearing ornate face paint. They were silent for a moment, then the Centurion spoke.  
“Tell me what you know of the Goddess Hecate,” he said.


	31. Bled Dry

Bled Dry  
Up until the very end Athena gave medical care to the Crazy Horns. Her bedside manner had become lacking, admittedly. She no longer told the tribals stories as she bandaged wounds, no longer smiled as she tied splints. She had grown cold and atrabilious, mouth always tight and eyes always downcast.  
She no longer taught, as per the Goddess' orders. Now the tribe taught itself, her former students now teaching the new generations of tribespeople, such as the new generations were. The Goddess wasn't interested in teaching the tribes too much. Just enough to exploit, Athena realized. The tribes of the wasteland were not allies to the Goddess, they were resources. Even if Athena had improved the individual lives of the Crazy Horns she was no more altruistic than a farmer tending her crops. Once she'd completely stolen the tribe's future away she would abandon them, let the field lay fallow.  
Until that happened she was determined to make sure the Crazy Horns were provided with care. Before the canaanites attacked the Crazy Horns had been pushed further and further to hunt and scavenge in more dangerous lands by surrounding tribes. Cases of tetanus were on the rise, Crazy Horns stepping on old nails or cutting themselves on rusty car doors in places that were once the industrial centers of Salt Lake City.  
Athena made a note of it in her report back to Ouroboros. She requested a supply of tetanus boosters and shots. For the first time ever, her requests for supplies were denied. She was not told why, but the official reason was because those most at risk for tetanus were mostly older women who had already given birth numerous times. It was believed that they were unlikely to produce any more fit children. That was the doctrine that the Goddess had created for her Daughters. If they were no longer producing children for the Goddess she was fine with the deaths of some tribals, even wanted it. This system favored male tribals, whose capacity to produce healthy children did not decline as much as a women's with age.  
Athena wasn't told why there would be no medicine for the tribe, but she knew why. The Crazy Horns were no longer valuable. They were getting used up and now that their well was dry they were soon to be left to the wild dogs. Athena shouldn't have cared. She was just as done with the Crazy Horns as Ouroboros was.  
If she had never arrived among the Crazy Horns, never given them medical attention or taught them how to survive, they wouldn't be in any better a position than they were now, she told herself. Almost half of all the children delivered were not snatched away like the others, for their failure to meet Hecate's standards. Even more than that half would've never been born at all if it weren't for Athena and the Goddess' help. Athena certainly could've abandoned the Crazy Horns in favor of her true people, the Daughters of Hecate.  
She wouldn't, though. There was something that wouldn't let her abandon those people any more than it had let her abandon Longhorn the hunter so many years ago. That fire lit back inside her breast and so she developed a plan. She stayed in Ouroboros much longer than normal, a little over a week. She knew some of the other Daughters who lived among tribes in the waste, and the Daughter she knew the best was Soledad, who was shaman among another Utah tribe. She begged Soledad to fake a tetanus outbreak among her own tribe in the hopes that Soledad's tribe would be deemed fit to receive the medicine. Soledad agreed to Athena's ruse and so in her reports she falsified a tetanus outbreak. She was provided with the necessary medicine. On their trip back through Utah Soledad gave Athena the medicine, so that the Crazy Horns would be provided for, for at least a little longer.


	32. Boiling Point

Boiling Point  
Tonantzin went scavenging by the Long 15 in Salt Lake City, at the Surplus. She traveled with a small group of other Crazy Horn women. Ostensibly they were hunting. The loss of Crazy Horn hunting grounds (already stretched thin by the population boom) had caused a food shortage.  
But there weren't any animals at the Surplus. No wasteland plants had yet managed to compensate for the poison land, the legacy of toxic industrial chemicals seeping into the ground for two centuries. There were ants at the Surplus but their meat was garbage. There was no food in the Surplus, but that wasn't what Tonantzin was looking for.  
She was looking for weapons. The Crazy Horns were salvaging metal in order to fashion it into better weapons than their traditional granite clubs. Tonantzin and her companions were gathering metal pipes, good pieces of sheet metal, wrenches, hammers, anything that could be fashioned into a weapon.  
Athena didn't know what Tonantzin was actually looking for. The elders didn't want Athena's expulsion to be violent, but they remembered well how she taught them to fear her laser pistol. The whole tribe had heard stories of other tribes who rejected the Daughters of Hecate being plagued by famine and disease, and set upon by other tribes cowed by the Goddess and her envoys. They wanted to be prepared.  
Athena was being kept in the dark by the Crazy Horns but she knew something was coming. The tension in the tribe was slowly reaching a boiling point. When Athena came back from Ouroboros the Crazy Horns were no longer her tribe, and she could feel it every time she walked among them. They watched her while she watched them, she stalked through the tribe like a predator among prey.  
The Crazy Horns weren't a warlike tribe, though, nor were they scavengers. Circumstances had pushed them out of their comfort zone and Tonantzin paid the price by getting a rusty nail stuck through her foot at the Surplus. She had to be supported all the way back to the village by her companions.  
Athena was engaging in her now-daily dance of fear and intimidation with the Crazy Horns when the scavengers came back from the surplus. Immediately Athena snapped out of her posturing when she saw Tonantzin's foot.  
“We didn't take the nail out, we didn't know what to do,” one of the other scavengers was hysterical, near to the point of tears. Tonantzin's foot did look terrible.  
“It's fine, you did the right thing, if you pulled this thing out she probably would've bled to death on the way back,” Athena reassured her while Tonantzin went pale. Athena raised Tonantzin's foot while giving her a cloth bag, “Huff this.”  
Tonantzin held the bag to her mouth a breathed deep. She passed out. Athena removed the nail from her foot, applying pressure to stem the flow of blood. She wrapped the wound in thick poly-cotton bandages and gave Tonantzin a tetanus shot. She smiled unconsciously as she finished up, proud of her work. Then she looked up.  
She was surrounded by a crowd of stone-faced Crazy Horns. Some were clutching metal weapons, clubs and spears crudely fashioned from scrap from the Surplus and other former industrial sights. There wasn't a single friendly tribes-person around her. She hadn't realized just how toxic her relations with the tribe had become. The tension had risen so gradually, and Athena was so immersed in it that only when she temporarily stepped outside to tend to Tonantzin's wounds did she realize how intense it had gotten.  
The tribe gripped their weapons tightly as Athena stood up, untied her laser pistol from her waist and dumped it unceremoniously into unconscious Tonantzin's lap. She began to walk, and the crowd parted to let her. She marched unmolested until she encountered the Canaanites, who had surrounded the village. They were dressed in puritanical clothing, immediately distinguishable from the Crazy Horns. The Canaanites all wore high collars and long sleeves, and none of the Canaanites who came to expel Athena were female. All of them carried guns, semi-automatic pistols and automatic rifles. In the middle of the Canaanites stood Jeremiah Rigdon, clutching a shotgun and sneering.  
“Your lies are no longer welcome here, false prophet,” he told Athena. He gripped his shotgun tighter as she approached, a woman unarmed and half his height. He did not move to let her pass like the Crazy Horns had. She stared at him, heavy-lidded and expecting no quarter.  
“Whore of Babylon, your time is at hand. You've poisoned this tribe against its allies and against God. You have woven a web of deceits and coerced the innocent into the worship of a demon and a blasphemer,” he boomed in his great, echoing voice, a voice that had cowed generations of Canaanites and the elders of the Crazy Horns. It was a voice full of assurance and the authority of the christian god. The tribe cowered at Jeremiah's words. Athena simply stood before him. She was tired, and defeated. She expected no mercy nor did she desire it. She looked Jeremiah right in the eyes.  
“Are you going to shoot me?” she asked, “Or will you step aside?”  
Jeremiah seemed taken aback. He had not intended to use violence unless Athena had become violent, but he was expecting her to resist a little. He wanted her gone, but he hadn't expected her to leave. He withdrew in stunned silence.  
Athena walked, leaving the Crazy Horns village behind her. She hadn't taken anything with her when she left, just her clothes and her collar. She left all her medication, she left all her personal belongings. She walked and she didn't look back.  
“Athena! Wait!” a voice cried out after she was nearly half a mile from the village. It was Too Much, the young Crazy Horns warrior. He ran to her, clutching her laser pistol in his hands. He handed it to her, and it seemed as though he wanted to say something, but he withdrew without a single word. Athena was all alone.


	33. A True Daughter

A True Daughter  
Atia's son Julius was delicate. Almost from the moment of his birth he was sickly and fragile. Had he been born under the Legion's banner he would have been exposed, left to die in the open. The Legion had no compassion for the feeble nor the capacity to care for them.  
Atia thought she would be relieved, even happy at her son's birth. She had defied the Legion, the elements, and a Goddess to give birth to her child; yet once he was born she wanted nothing to do with him. In her mind he became a tumor, a sickness that had been removed surgically and precisely, and once removed required little more than quick disposal. In many ways he was a physical manifestation of her time among the Legion, much like her periodic nightmares were the mental reminders of her slavery, dreams from which she could not escape.  
She hated the Legion, she wanted to deny the Legion part of her as much as possible, and yet there it was with ten fingers and ten toes staring into her eyes with the eyes of the men who abused her for a decade. Every time she stared into his eyes, those innocent gray eyes she wanted to throw up. It was a great relief to her when Julius began to have seizures just a few days after his birth. The Daughters assured her that he would be alright, preemptively tried to calm her down, but in truth she was relieved that he was being taken away from her to be placed under intensive care. She secretly wished he'd never come back.  
He was gone for two weeks. In those two weeks she tried to distract herself as much as possible. She pledged herself to the Goddess Hecate, smoked the ritual bufo, drank ritual alcohol, and was given her face paint pattern. She was given the rank of Sibyl and with it the job of record-keeping. It was not unlike her old responsibilities with the Legion, organizing and storing data, although unlike the Legion occasionally she was required to file information on a computer. Among the Legion computers were ripped apart so their gold could be harvested and melted down to coins. Although she was slightly uncomfortable working at a computer, she found comfort among the many rows of old binders and log-books. Once again she found herself inside the heart of a powerful society, and it was as though the books and binders that rested within this heart pulsed with the beat of her own organ. She felt at peace.  
At the end of the two weeks Atia was informed that her son needed more care, and would be retained by the intensive care ward for at least another two weeks. She was ashamed at how relieved she felt. She retreated further into the culture of hedonism that pervaded Ouroboros. Two weeks went by, then another two weeks. The Daughters came to Atia again and again, delaying the return of her son, citing medical reasons. She slipped away, stopped thinking about Julius except on those rare occasions when a very serious and stentorian Daughter would visit her and update her on his progress.  
Near the end of one night of hedonism, while they reclined in the baths and shared a hookah, Julia confronted Atia about her son.  
“Y'know they aren't going to give him back to you unless you want him back,” she said after blowing out a billowing cloud of smoke, “He probably isn't even in the ICU anymore,” she said to the intricately tiled walls of the beautiful temple baths.  
Atia was taken aback, but she was too high to feel the shock for long. Julia handed her the hose of the hookah and she bit down on the mouthpiece as she inhaled. By then it had been four months since her son was born. Her son was four months old and she hadn't even bothered to visit him. She blew out the pangs of guilt with the smoke. She remained silent, staring at the tiles and trying to form cohesive thoughts.  
Julia reclined on the edge of the bath. “That's the way they do things around here,” she lazily drawled, soporific from the night's excesses, “If you were a true Daughter you'd be conditioned to just let him go,” she said mockingly, “If you were a true Daughter you wouldn't have had him at all.”  
“The Goddess doesn't want anything so petty as family ties to drag her perfect army down,” Julia continued bitterly, swirling the warm water with her hand, “Fealty to the family only impedes fealty to the Goddess. Love for the family only obstructs love for the Goddess. And then there's the practical element, that your basic worshipers aren't as equipped to educate and train the children as the priestesses chosen by the Goddess. It's a more efficient system, I see that.”  
Atia listened to Julia's drunken soliloquy with a growing sense of unease. What beast had she sacrificed her son to? What world had she immersed herself in? She felt something grow in her, something that had never before been a part of her. She had chosen this place, she had decided to come to Ouroboros and worship Hecate. She had never had agency over her own life, had never had the privilege to make choices for herself before. Something was growing inside her, a sense of responsibility. Her life was her own now, and the duty to make the right choices was her's and her's alone. She thought of her son, a life that she had brought into the world, a life completely helpless and without the authority or independence that was still new to Atia herself.  
In the morning she forgot her conversation with Julia, but a sick feeling sat in her stomach. It stuck with her through the entire day, a nagging tug which pulled her towards something she feared more than anything else. After she was done tending to the Hall of Records, she visited her son for the first time in the ICU.  
He looked small. She hadn't seen him in so long, she assumed he would be bigger. He smiled at her. The doctors assured her he was a healthy weight, despite his health. They informed Atia that Julius was having breathing problems, and although they were treatable they didn't have the resources to treat them outside the medical center.  
Julia also woke up feeling sick. Unlike Atia she remembered their conversation the night before, and felt awful about the things she'd said. They had been candid and true, admittedly, but also insensitive and cruel. She had betrayed her own bitter hubris in a moment of inebriation. She didn't know what she would say to Atia the next time she saw her. Fortunately for Julia, Atia began talking as soon as they met again.  
Atia admitted to visiting her son. Julius was still infirm, only now the seizures had receded and were replaced by sputtering choking breathing fits, the sound of which nearly drove Atia into grieving hysterics.  
“He sounded so awful, wheezing like that,” Atia cried to Julia, “I didn't know what to do. I don't know what to do.”  
After Atia left Julia visited Julius in the ICU. She was filled in by the doctors on what was wrong. They admitted that the Goddess likely had the resources to allow Julius to leave the ICU, but considering his status as a blasphemous birth and his mother's apparent disdain for him they hadn't bothered to petition the Goddess for the supplies.  
“Personally, we've considered just letting it die,” confessed Gillian, back at Ouroboros from assignment with Bella and the other Maenads. Although Julia had relinquished command of her old team in favor of her position as Hecate's high priestess, she still spoke to her old team whenever they were in town, “I mean, it's clearly inferior to the proper children of the Goddess.”  
Julia was taken aback, not only by the callousness of her long-time ally, but also how Gillian's casual lack of compassion reflected her own. She had long been convinced that the Daughters were the only hope for the southwest wasteland, but she had to admit that when encountering anything that didn't fit their dogma the Daughters could be extremely ruthless.  
Atia took a night to sober up, taking her first steps towards maturity when she was visited by Julia.  
“I want you to take your son out of the ICU,” she told Atia conspiratorially, “and the next time he has breathing difficulty, give him this,” she handed Atia a small cylindrical device that looked not unlike a jet dispenser but which Julia assured her was medicine to help with Julius' breathing, “If you run out, come find me.”  
Atia didn't know what to say. She felt a lump well in her throat and tears well in her eyes. She asked Julia how she could repay her.  
“Just take care of your son,” Julia answered.


	34. In the Shadow

In the Shadow  
The Goddess assured Athena that the Crazy Horns would be suitably punished for turning away from Hecate and casting out her messenger. Athena was wary of the Goddess' retribution. She did not feel any particular animosity towards the Crazy Horns, but she supposed it was out of her hands. The Goddess had to punish all tribes that did not submit to her. It was politics, not personal.  
And so Athena began to readjust to civilization. She had been returning to Ouroboros once a month for the past decade, and the routine never changed. She turned in her reports for the Goddess, and she was debriefed by the Sibyls. Then for a day and a half she ritually imbibed alcohol and smoked bufo. Usually she also danced at the dance hall, and lounged in the baths. Every month she looked forward to returning, but in all that time it never occurred to her what it was really like to live at Ouroboros, in the shadow of the Goddess's pyramid.  
Athena was given a place to sleep, a clean cot in a spartan bunker. She shared a room with seven other Daughters. There was evidence in the room that other women lived there, pictures and paintings on the walls and clothing on the other cots, but for a week Athena did not see her roommates.  
She lived by the schedule she kept with the Crazy Horns. Every day she woke up as the sun rose, even though she could no longer see the sun when she awoke. The bunker was different from her animal-skin tent. But it didn't matter, six AM was when Athena awoke and some part of her wanted to keep it that way. She wanted to be awake as much as possible. She was scared of the time she spent sleeping. When she was sleeping so many things could be happening and she would have no idea.  
Was she sleeping when the Crazy Horns plotted their betrayal, her expulsion? She must have. Had the Goddess refused her request for medicine while she slept her alcohol off? It felt that way. When she was among the Crazy Horns a starving diamondback slipped into camp one night and ate a family and their livestock; two children a woman a man and two bighorners. They found it the next morning in the family's tent, lethargic from its meal. Athena was asleep when the diamondback attacked. She was asleep when her husband died.  
When Athena wasn't sleeping she was wandering aimlessly. For a long time her purpose was clear, at least she thought it was clear. She healed the Crazy Horns, and aided them in decisions. She stole their healthy children away and replaced them with sickly transplants. She made sure they worshiped the Goddess. Until the time just before her expulsion from the tribe her purpose had been so clear, and even near the end she still knew where her loyalty lay. Now that she was relieved from her responsibilities loyalty wasn't enough. She felt lost and aloof. She felt no more welcome among Ouroboros than she had felt among the Crazy Horns in the weeks prior.  
Which wasn't to say that Ouroboros wasn't beautiful and inviting. The work of the Goddess and her Daughters (and a few Hounds) had rendered the area a lush paradise, where once previously-extinct plant life flourished. There were orchards and orchids and roses and tall golden grasses that rippled melodically in the wind. Whenever she was hungry Athena walked over to the apple trees and plucked a huge ripe apple, washed it in one of the many fountains and ate it, core and all. Often she let the juices drip down her face, smearing her face-paint. It was heavenly.  
Sometimes she talked to other Daughters. Occasionally she helped them garden but she felt clumsy and oafish tending the plants. They hardly needed tending anyway. Most of them were genetically modified to repel predators and the ones that weren't were covered in pesticides. The gardens required little upkeep beyond trimming and harvesting. She did not feel talented enough in those respects to take the place of another Daughter, or a Mr. Handy.  
Towards the end of her first week back she watched the children of the Goddess play. Boys and girls too young to be Hounds or Daughters, most of them “recruited” from tribes across the wasteland. A few were even descended from the Crazy Horns, the babies Athena stole away from their biological parents to be raised in the shadow of the Goddess' temple. She watched the children play and learn. All in one moment she was filled with overwhelming love. As she watched children with facial features she knew all too well learn multiplication, an abstract concept completely foreign to the tribal way of life she felt vindicated. She watched them play, these young children totally oblivious to the suffering of the wasteland. Children that had been rescued, not kidnapped, from a hard and desperate life struggling for survival in uninviting badlands.  
Athena watched the children play for awhile longer then returned to her bunker. To her surprise she encountered one of her roommates. She was a short, curvy girl, pale complexion and a short brown haircut. Her face paint was patterned after flowers, daisies maybe. She was folding clothes to store in the trunk beneath her cot. She greeted Athena as she walked in.  
“Oh hey, you're the new roommate, right? My name's Sunflower,” she extended her hand for a handshake but when Athena took her hand she pulled Athena in for a hug.  
“Hi, my name's Athena,” she answered, overwhelmed but grateful. It was the most connection she had made with anyone since returning. This woman who had only just begun to share a living space with her, accepting her without reservation, completely and utterly openly accepting her was a revelation to Athena. No tribal would have such unselfconscious acceptance. The respect of a tribe like the Crazy Horns was earned not given, and even though she'd earned the respect a of the Crazy Horns a long time ago their hard and unfriendly way of life had come to dominate her reality.  
“It's kind of weird to be back,” she admitted to her roommate, “I was a Harpy for so long, out there in the tribes. I guess I just feel kind of useless now.”  
“Honey, you need to relax!” Sunflower admonished her, “We're all Harpies who had to leave their tribes for one reason or another,” Sunflower flashed a big, dopey smile, “My tribe was conquered by the Legion. Six-Guns, who sleeps over here,” Sunflower pointed at the cot covered in ragdolls, “her tribe was wiped out by a sudden outbreak of influenza. Abuela's tribe,” she indicated towards the cot that Athena realized had a rifle tucked between piles of clothing, “all got mercury poisoning. We've all been assigned to live here until there's something else for us to do, but I think mostly we've been forgotten about. We started to consider it retirement after awhile. You should come join us!”  
“Join you do what?” Athena asked.  
“Join us performing the ritual!”  
Athena always looked forward to returning to Ouroboros, she liked the drinking and the dancing and the smoking. The rituals paraded around under the guise of religion, but Athena always knew in the back of her mind that really it was a reward for service to the Goddess. The Harpies were the lowest rung among the Daughters, and had the most difficult job. It made sense to reward them every once in awhile with a little partying. Athena knew that all Harpies did the rituals when they returned, but she had underestimated the scope of the Goddess' efforts. New Harpies returned every day to turn in their reports. And every day they engaged in the ritual, and Athena and her roommates were there right alongside them. Athena began to slip away into a drug-fueled haze, and she couldn't have been happier.


	35. Ghost

Ghost  
There was a ghost in Hecate's temple; a vengeful, bitter ghost. A sinister visage that Athena had long given up for dead. Occasionally it came to her in her dreams, haunt her while she was sleeping and vulnerable. A demon summoned by her subconscious to torture her when she felt upset or scared. It haunted her when her relations with the Crazy Horns faltered, twisted her dreams into visions of violence and hatred.  
She had never seen it before in waking life, though. The sight chilled her to her core. Just a fleeting glimpse in the dark dance hall, the face so quickly disappeared it could've been a trick of the smoke. Athena was certain it was a bufo-inspired vision but the thought didn't give her much comfort. The ghost only appeared to Athena as an omen of foreboding, as a grave warning of bad things to come.  
Athena settled into life at Ouroboros. She and the other forgotten Daughters engaged themselves principally in reverie and recreation. Every hedonistic whim she devised was indulged. She ate, she drank, she lounged. Athena felt herself slip away, her memories of the Crazy Horns becoming a drug-addled muddle of impressions and images, brief and disconnected glimpses into a life which was no longer in any way relevant to her. Pleasure became so commonplace she hardly felt it anymore, she was so submerged in the feeling of ecstasy she no longer recognized it. She was drowning, comfortably, and she didn't want it to end.  
Then the ghost appeared and it shocked her out of her descent. It was a cold splash of water, a fleeting encounter with death itself. It terrified her, it truly terrified her. Something unimaginably bad was coming. Soon she was catching glimpses of the bitter ghost out of the corner of her eye every other day. She'd be lounging in the temple baths, soaking in the steam and talking about nothing at all with her new friends and it appeared nearly out of sight, passing menacingly through the corridor. She saw it in the gardens, a dark shadow skulking between the trees of the orchard. Often it would come to her in the dance hall, swirling around her, haunting Athena with its visions of death and betrayal. It was enough to send her into hiding.  
She retreated to the bunker and refused to leave. She hid under her covers like a child hiding from the dark. The ghost in her waking nightmares held so much sway over her she was forced to come down from the bufo. She hoped that would end it, that the haunting would come to an unceremonious close as her mind sobered between her bedsheets. It didn't chase away the nagging feelings of impending doom, but she felt relieved that soon her waking life would at least be released of the visions.  
Her roommates were concerned but were so steeped in their own self-love that they didn't put forth any effort to help. Athena didn't know what to say to them anyway. The ghost was a figment of a time long past. Its origins traced farther back than Athena's induction into the Daughters of Hecate, even. It was so wrapped up in her past that there was no way to clarify it to her fellow Daughters cleanly and precisely. There were no words for the vitriol or the fear that the ghost inspired in Athena, at least none in the common tongue. Perhaps in the language of her original tribe could she find the words, but she had long forgotten most of the Twisted Hair dialect that had once been her only means of communication. All she could say was that she felt terrible things were about to happen.  
She was correct in her predictions of bad news. Once she sobered up and felt safe to leave the bunker, she returned to the Goddess' pyramid. There she discovered the most terrifying truth she couldn't imagine even with all her feverish predictions, despite how obvious it was in retrospect. She was stone-cold sober, so she could no longer blame the appearance of the ghost, the demon of her past, on drugs or visions. There it was, idly reclining in the main hall of the pyramid. She was older, obviously. Her hair was no longer in the style of their former tribe and her back was covered in hideous, unfamiliar scars, but her face was painted like a Daughter's, and she still had that unappealing air of cool aloofness.  
“Arama,” Athena spoke the name like a curse, and the corners of her mouth contorted with rage, “Arama lives?”


	36. Y-3

Y-3   
Julia watched the clear solution crawl steadily up the syringe. She carefully measured out the dose, a recreational hit of med-x. Nothing that would completely kill her nerves but it would certainly take the edge off. A little bit of fun.  
Julia always stayed sober on assignment, but whenever she returned she couldn't help but indulge a little, even though she still had her responsibilities in Ouroboros. She pushed the needle into the soft flesh of her underarm and pressed the plunger, letting the med-x and saline flow into her bloodstream. It took a moment to let the feeling wash over her body, that slightly tingly feeling of floating, of being and not being.  
She didn't quite know what she was supposed to do today, so she was ducking the Goddess and avoiding new assignments. She hid in a small tin shack near the edge of Ouroboros to shoot up, her private room where she couldn't be disturbed because no-one cared about a rotting scrap shack. She retreated to the shack but she never slept there, instead whenever she spent time back among the flock she'd find empty beds wherever they were to be found and kept her personal belongings in a locker at the armory. She kept nothing in her private space because it couldn't be locked and she had no way of knowing whether she was sharing the space with anyone else. But it was a good place to shoot up, to sit and think.  
But then again, thinking was overrated, Julia decided. She lit out for the Maenad bar, a half-sunk one story building nestled cozily between the Daughter's barracks and the school. Julia wound her way through the smoky tables to the back corner booth, her favorite spot and furthest from the door. She got a glass of water and sat among the low murmur of the other Maenads relaxing in their downtime.  
Outside, Athena had been watching. She knew it was only a matter of time before Arama visited the Maenad bar. She staked out a good vantage point and waited, waited until she could catch the person she hated and feared most. She followed Julia in.  
Julia didn't even notice Athena follow her, didn't notice Athena search the dark room for her. She was content to stew in her opiate haze, in one of the few places she felt comfortable enough to not watch her surroundings like a hawk. She was taken by surprise when Athena sat across from her but she was not perturbed. They looked at each other for a moment, Julia searching the woman in front of her for clues to her identity, Athena seething with hatred and steeling herself to speak. Eventually Julia recognized her.  
“Athena, right?” Julia asked languidly. She remembered Athena from the Twisted Hairs, but had never known her enough to know anything else about her. If she had been more present Julia may have asked Athena how she survived the Legion's betrayal, or how she had also come to follow Hecate, but as she was Julia simply wondered why Athena was bothering her at all. She got her answer soon enough.  
“I don't know what you think you're doing here,” Athena hissed, “The Goddess must not know what you did or otherwise She'd cast you out, curse you with the plague you deserve. You make me sick, playing Her loyal servant when all you are is a traitor. You should be ashamed, you should be ashamed Arama. I don't even know how you can live with yourself, live with the choices you have made. I'm going to give you the opportunity to tell Her yourself, let Her know what you did to us, let Her know what kind of vile serpent She's invited into Her Daughters. I'm going to let you tell Her because I cannot hurt Her like you do every day you claim to love Her. But if you don't tell Her, Arama, you can be assured that I will tell Her, I will let Her know because you cannot do this, I cannot let you get away with this you nodriza de la maii!-”  
With one serpentine motion Julia slipped an errant finger into Athena's collar and used it to slam her head down on the table. In her other hand she seemingly conjured a revolver from nowhere, actually from under the table, and pressed it to Athena's temple. She smiled.  
“Do you know why this bar is Maenad-only, Athena? It's because when the Goddess founded Ouroboros she discovered this building had a separate water system. Because she could never find its source, the taps only pour dirty water. But Maenads have a purifier installed, standard,” she ran the iron sight of the gun barrel up and down her throat, while clutching Athena's collar tightly with her other hand and pulling it back, so that it bit into Athena's neck and choked her a little, “so unlike the Sibyls, or,” she spit the word, “Harpies, we don't have to worry about whether the water is clean or not.”  
“If you can, from your disadvantaged viewpoint, look around us,” Julia gestured at the rest of the bar with the revolver, its other patrons ignoring the loud drama of the back corner booth, “Do you see if anyone cares? Do you think they'd start if I blew your brains all over this table?”  
Julia angrily shook Athena's collar as she pronounced each word, “Let's get this clear. I am operating on a completely different plain, and I don't play games with my inferiors. By all means, if you can even get an audience with the Goddess, tell her. Maybe she'll even believe you, just a little, if I don't deny it,” she released Athena's collar.  
“I'm glad we had this chat,” Athena felt the cold steel of the gun lift off her temple as Julia got up to leave, “If you ever bother me again I'll kill you.”  
She sashayed out of the room, her long skirt flowing behind her. Athena waited a bit longer, resting her head on the flat, indifferent surface of the table.


	37. Conspiracy of Women

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ladies, am I right, fellas?

Conspiracy of Women  
The interrogation yielded greater results than Scipio Venator could've hoped for. Ruth was conflicted, she had all but abandoned the Goddess Hecate for the Goddess Diana and now it seemed she in turn had been abandoned. Diana was gone, and so were the Twin Mothers. Helea, Ruth's closest confidant and ally was dead, killed by Legionaries in the worst way possible. It was just her, alone, against this Centurion and his guard.  
She had no love for the Legion, but she had less hate for them than a Daughter was expected to. Unlike her peers she had never been personally attacked by the Legion; their seemingly omnipresent antagonization of the southwest wasteland didn't include her people. It helped that Ruth and her people were not tribals. She had been born and raised in a vault. She hailed from Vault 27, a vault that was located in southern New Mexico. She had been educated in a traditional school environment, she had been taught gun safety at a shooting range, she knew what ice cream (or a reasonable facsimile) tasted like. She had grown up in a pre-war environment. She knew about the Romans. She may have found Caesar's Legion amusing when she first encountered them, but they did not attack her and she did not attack them. In fact, before joining the Daughters of Hecate she had been hired by the Legion to harass New Mexico settlements. Of course, she'd gotten out of that game before the other foot dropped. The other mercenaries she'd worked with were all enslaved by the Legion, eventually. She had found a better game in Hecate worship, more security and less danger, and so after awhile with the Daughters she adopted an anti-Legion attitude to fit in.  
It was bitterly ironic that now that she finally had a real reason to hate the Legion with all her heart she aided them immensely. She was so full of grief and loss she couldn't think straight. She was scared, too, in a way she had never been scared before. She had lead a sheltered life, and she had never felt threatened by anything on the waste. It was as though she had a special force field and nothing could touch her, no matter how dangerous things got. It had not been a strength so much as foolishness and now it fled her on fleet wings.  
The presence of the Centurion was terrifying. He was bedecked in bloodstained armor, and had a face like granite rock. Just behind him stood a man easily seven feet tall, bedecked in unusual black-leather Legion armor, the uniqueness of which only made him more intimidating. He had a long scar reaching from his left eyebrow all the way to the back of his head, and his left eye wandered a little, was a little out of synch with his right eye like it was made out of glass. Both men were knotted with scars, and thick with muscle. They smelled awful, the Centurion a bit like motor oil and the Legionary like blood and shit and leather.  
She told them everything, everything she knew. She was just a Harpy, so her glimpses into the inner workings of the Daughters was limited, but it was more than enough for Scipio. She told him about Hecate, the mad tribal Goddess. She told him how the Daughters converted tribes to Hecate worship, about their abduction and indoctrination of tribal infants. Two pieces of information intrigued Scipio the most, namely, the Goddess' plan to raise a perfect army, and the location of the Goddess' headquarters.  
“A cabal of women, I knew it,” he muttered to himself as he left the interrogation room, escorted by Mortuus Anima, “They're trying to undermine us all, M. I've known for a long time,” he continued to mutter, his validation only worsening his paranoia, “Decanus, follow me.”  
He lead Mortuus into a room covered in pictures and notes. Their were grainy, dirt-covered photographs and drawings of women, women with Centurions and women being held captive, women with elaborate face paintings. There were sketches, endless sketches of a black dot; of a snake eating its own tail.  
“See here, scout report on Hangdog tribe,” he held up an official report, “One year later, a half-cohort of Centurions Venator, Crassus, Magnus, and Ursus subdue the tribe, wash ritual face paint from captured Hangdogs. Scout report does not mention tribal face paint!”  
“Official license of wedding,” he violently snatched a folder and held it up to Mortuus' face, “Between Centurion Crassus Arma of Two Suns and daughter of the First Mesa village mayor. Two months later, Centurion Crassus is found dead of apparent rad poisoning, wife is nowhere to be found!”  
Mortuus did not see the connection, and did not understand what was wrong, but assumed it all had to do with 'Hecate' and 'Ouroboros.' As near as he could tell it would be perfectly normal for scouts to not report insignificant details and for a Centurion's wife to inexplicably disappear. It was a well-known rumor that Aurelius of Phoenix likely ate his first wife. Yet something about the documents drove Centurion Venator into a fury. He continued to rant and throw ledgers about, furious in his triumph. His good eye started to twitch. Mortuus said nothing, as it was not his place to interrupt his Centurion.  
Abruptly Venator stopped. He rested his hands on the table and stared furiously at his carefully gathered and compiled evidence towards a conspiracy, a conspiracy against the Legion by a cabal of face-painted and beautiful women. He had been researching quietly for years, and it had all come to this moment. He slowly looked at his Decanus, his pariah Decanus with the non-regulation apparel and massive stature.  
“Gather the Decanus. We march for Ouroboros.”


	38. Strophades

Strophades  
The details came quickly. The Daughters had been betrayed, that much was obvious. The valley that Ouroboros occupied was accessible through a few ways, all of which were guarded but none moreso than the route the Harpies were given to enter.  
It was at this entrance that Scipio Venator and his Centuriae attacked. It was a bloodbath. The Hounds were caught unaware, swarmed by superior numbers despite their superior firepower. Hound Captain Jordan Dae was cut down by no less than an entire contubernia attacking him at once, but before he was killed he managed to send word of the attack back to Ouroboros.  
“They've penetrated the first defense,” Sibyl Yvana reported, “Strophades corridor is compromised. Captain Dae is killed in action,” she concluded, crestfallen.  
“Order the main guard out to Strophades checkpoint three, tripletime,” Julia commanded, “Get a contingent of Maenads supporting them. Wait for further orders from the Goddess.”  
She turned on her heal and left the Sibyl control center. She entered the private chambers of the Goddess unannounced as was her privilege and filled her in on the details including her response. The Goddess was stunned. For more than a decade she had maintained authority over the southwest wasteland and Caesar's puissant Legion without so much as condemnation and new she faced her first Legion attack since the betrayal of the Twisted Hairs.  
As Julia waited for her Goddess to respond, Hecate's head filled with Dark Mother's visions. The Legion standard over a thick black cloud of smoke, the smell of burning tires so thick in the air she could choke on it. They severed limbs from her tribespeople, left a whole pile of arms and legs that quickly attracted a swarm of bloatflies.  
She remembered the man with a coyote's head. The devil the Legion rode with. He tore whole warriors limb from limb, strong men who knew battle like the bloatflies knew the bodies of her tribe's slain. The coyote with the body of a man tore them into fat bloody chunks. Who could fight a force allied with old coyote himself? The stench of death, the stench left by the death of the Twisted Hairs flooded Hecate's nose and she was unable to lead.  
Meanwhile, Mortuus Anima led the charge of Venator's Centuriae, a Legion standard strapped to his back and a roaring chainsaw in his hands.  
“Caesar Enim! Enim Legion!” he screamed at the Legionaries, ushering them onward into battle for the glory and benefit of Caesar. It was ironic, considering Centurion Venator had gone AWOL to attack Ouroboros, meaning Mortuus and the Legionaries who followed him through the winding corridor were no longer part of the Legion or owned by Caesar. Although they still fought for Caesar they lacked his blessing. No amount of convincing on Scipio Venator's part could convince Caesar or his Legate that the Daughters of Hecate and Hecate worshipers in general were a threat to the Legion, at least not enough of a threat to expend the resources of an entire Centuriae.  
Venator didn't even bother to tell him. He knew Caesar would be too short-sighted, would underestimate the threat presented by the Hecate worshipers. He would make an effort to stamp it out where he saw it, certainly, as he stamped out all non-Legion ideologies in the southwest wasteland. He wouldn't see the organization or the dangerous efficiency of the creed and its believers.  
Venator knew he could never go back. It didn't matter. He would save Caesar and the Legion even if it meant damning himself and his men, even if it meant turning away from Mars' embrace.  
Julia noticed her Goddess' hesitation, even if she didn't understand it. She knew it was no time to get lost in thought, not aware of the dread visions that fueled Hecate's paralysis. The Legion would be advancing to the second checkpoint in a matter of minutes, and inaction could mean the death of Hecate and all her Daughters.  
“I'm going to transfer Hounds from other checkpoints to Strophades checkpoint three, and mobilize Ouroboros proper,” she informed Hecate. The Goddess could only nod in shock. Julia had her approval and returned to the Sibyl control center to give her commands.  
“W-where are you going?” Yvana asked Julia after receiving the orders, tears now streaming down her face for her departed Captain Dae.  
“I'm suiting up and I'm getting out there. Keep me posted over the shortwave, on the special channel,” Julia grabbed a radio and walked briskly to the armory, where she encountered Bella, the new leader of her old Maenad team.  
“What's the word? Shortwave is blowing up,” she asked.  
“Right now a Centuriae of Legionaries are killing our Hounds at Strophades checkpoint two, while checkpoint three is getting reinforcements. We don't know if this is part of a bigger assault yet, but it doesn't look like it. Help me get my armor on, then tell your team to suit up and take defensive positions, then meet me on the promontory,” Julia dressed quickly, practiced at taking her body armor on and off.  
The Strophades corridor was the most tactically defensible entryway into the Valley of Hecate. It was a narrow, winding corridor that opened into a flat, vast plain, the entirety of which could be viewed from the promontory, a tall rock jutting out of the ground at a low angle. Julia climbed its gentle slope and positioned herself with The Lady. Nothing could broach the valley from Strophades and escape her or her .50 caliber rifle. She was soon joined by Bella, who had brought her hunting Winchester.  
“Second checkpoint has withdrawn to the third, which is at triple strength. There aren't any attacks at any other entrance, so it looks like it's just the one group,” Julia filled Bella in.  
“I can't believe we didn't see this coming,” Bella mused anxiously. A long, greasy strand of blonde hair fell in front of her face, and she brushed it back and put her Kossuth hat with all the animal teeth in the brim back on. Unlike Julia's authoritarian, pre-war Hopeville riot armor, Bella wore light hunting apparel. Unlike Julia's thick, armored jacket Bella's duster was sewn together from the leather of animals she'd killed and skinned herself.  
Belladonna Fiasco of the Fiasco family, as she was called where she came from, was once the premier hunter of a family of hunters in a small Arizona town. When she became a Hecate worshiper she claimed she had fled the Legion because they were trying to enslave her, but the truth was her town had capitulated to Legion rule without incident. She had actually helped teach the Legion's explorers better survival skills in exchange for Legion coin. She only left when the Legion explorer corps muscled her out of her hunting contracts and off her hunting grounds- using the skills she taught them, of course. She had served as tracker in Julia's Maenad team before replacing her as captain.  
“If anyone makes it through, we'll pick them off,” Julia shrugged off Bella's apprehension, trying to shake her own apprehension at the Goddess' less-than-assuring or leader-like response to the Legion attack, “If any Legion make it through,” she repeated. She grit her teeth and peered through The Lady's scope.  
“If anyone makes it through.”


	39. Sinnerman

Sinnerman  
Mortuus pumped his legs harder and faster than ever before in his life. The Legion standard had been ripped from his back, his white stetson had been carried away by the wind. He couldn't tell if the blood he felt on his forehead was his or one of his victim's. He couldn't tell if any of the blood he was soaked in was his. He didn't care.  
He didn't know if anyone had followed him through. The second defense had not fallen as quickly as the first, but Mortuus had been on the heels of the retreating defenders all the way to the third. He ceased to feel, he ceased to think. The chainsaw was not the most efficient weapon he'd ever used, but it set a standard for the battle that intimidated the Hecate-worshiping defenders. Mortuus had almost been shot several times in the process of grinding through enemy sternums, but whenever he felt a gun barrel point his way he would simply look at the gunman and roar. Covered in ruby viscera and with eyes full of pure fury, Mortuus' roar couldn't even be heard over his chainsaw but it didn't matter, they all flinched away. He cut a straight path through the third defense and pushed through. He thought Legionaries had followed him, but none broke ranks. They were down to only a little more than thirty men. Mortuus ran alone.  
He now understood the threat the Daughters of Hecate posed. In fighting them he realized that they were not just individual women preaching to tribes, they were a full-fledged military force. Their tactics were too good, their soldiers too disciplined, and their weapons were in too good of shape to not be considered a threat, and yet the Legion had absolutely no knowledge of them. Somewhere around the second defense the Dead Soul realized that this wasn't just the wild paranoia of an unhinged centurion, that the outcome of this battle would likely determine the fate of the Legion and the entire southwest wasteland. So he fought, he fought like he had never fought before. He stopped thinking and feeling, because he knew if he let himself think or feel he would feel that this was a battle neither he nor the Legion was going to win. He ran, and when he heard a rifle's retort he only ran faster.  
“Shit!” Bella's shot went way wild, well off its mark. She was jittery. She knew who this man was. She knew of the Dead Soul.  
“He's too far away. Let him get closer to us,” Julia chided dully. She had withdrawn behind Bella as soon as she scoped the Legionary who had broken through the third checkpoint. She recognized him immediately, his black leather and his dark, empty eyes. She recognized her only brother. She withdrew calmly and precisely, left her gun to rest on the rocks and sat back. She pulled out a syringe full of med-x.  
“The Dead Soul!” Bella took another shot that had no chance of hitting him, “Fuck!”  
“Relax, you aren't compensating for the wind enough,” Julia placidly corrected Bella's sniping. She sat cross-legged and took deep, measured breaths as she pulled her arm out of her sleeve. She pulled the cap off the med-x with her teeth.  
“He's massive! He's like a human deathclaw!” Bella fired another shot, “Fuck!”  
“He's not going to make it to Ouroboros,” Julia didn't even look up as she spoke, focused intently on inserting the needle into her vein. She injected the med-x in one steady, even dosage.  
“He could still reach us! I don't want that happening!” Bella had completely lost her cool. The calmer Julia was, the more nervous it made her. She had never seen Julia act so blasé in a combat situation, even when it was low-risk. The Julia Bella knew took all combat threats seriously and handled them professionally and with appropriate force. She would never sit away from her rifle and disconnect when there was a clear and present threat. Hell, Julia always relished the opportunity to kill. If this had been one of their missions when Julia was captain, they would've engaged in a contest to see who could kill their target the fastest.  
Yet here was Julia abdicating and leaving the target entirely to Bella, so she could shoot up no less. That scared Bella more than the Dead Soul, fabled warrior of the Legion. It wasn't that he was seven feet tall, that he was splattered with the blood of her allies, that he was moving faster than she could believe, that somehow even with the wind she could hear the revving of his chainsaw, it was that for the first time ever Julia Aram was hesitant to kill someone. She didn't know what that said about Mortuus Anima, but she knew it was enough to get scared. She fired another desperate shot.  
“Deep breaths, Bella,” Julia said in her unnerving monotone. She sounded distant, disaffected. She finished the shot, put the cap back on the empty syringe, and put it back in her coat, all very methodically and cool. She put her arm back in her sleeve and sat for a moment, meditating, letting the med-x flow through her.  
“Will you fucking help me!” Bella yelled at her, exasperated. She was almost in tears at Julia's impassivity, unable to understand what was happening as Mortuus drew closer. She didn't know it, but the battle was over. There was only one Legionary left alive and he was running at them with superhuman speed, carrying a chainsaw.  
Julia looked at her with empty, glassy eyes. Bella was shaken to the core by Julia's dead stare. She would never forget that look as long as she lived.  
Julia sat up and reclaimed her gun. She peered down the scope, relocating her brother. She looked away from the scope, away from her target, and looked again into Bella's terrified eyes. She stared coldly at Bella and fired. Her rifle made a sharp crack that the wind carried away. She stood up, and slung The Lady over her shoulder. She did not look away from Bella.  
“See? It wasn't so hard,” she said without emotion. She turned around and gently ambled down the promontory.  
In the middle of the sun-scorched plain, among the dead grass and skeletal shrubbery was Mortuus Anima. The Dead Soul's headless body was splayed wide open on the hard dry earth, the concussive blast of the .50 caliber bullet which burst his skull like a ripe mutfruit having knocked his corpse a full three feet backwards.


	40. Broken Nose

Broken Nose  
Arama made her way carefully over the rocks that clambered over each other in their bid to be swallowed by the Colorado. Just past them was a smooth, flat beach where she could play in peace. The deceptively placid river flowed past her; a single miscalculation in her footing and she would fall in and be swept away. Tied to her waist was a knife, which slapped against her bare thigh as the river roared in her ears.  
She arrived at the beach and set about digging fervently with her bare hands into the wet sand. Buried shallowly within the damp soil was a filthy toy rocketship. When she unearthed the toy Arama clutched it reassuringly to her breast. She re-established herself at the beach, using her knife to cut crude yet expansive designs. She made intricate mandalas gouged into the wet earth, a complex geometry which defined imaginary landscapes.  
She played with her rocketship, pretending that it was flying all over the world with a crew of four, represented by rocks that she gathered. She picked the rocks for their distinctive shapes and named them. There was Dum-Dum the cook, Bruce the pilot, Merica the captain, and Chandy the gunner. Dum-Dum, Bruce, and Merica were all ladies, Chandy was the only boy. He stayed in his room in the spaceship while the ladies ate and cleaned and flew the rocket ship. When the ship encountered enemies Chandy would leave his room to man the weapons and then immediately returned to his room. Dum-Dum and Bruce were in a relationship, but Merica came between them, causing friction in the ship.  
Occasionally the throaty ribbit of a gecko could be heard, but Arama wasn't scared. The tribe had lived alongside the geckos for generations, and in many ways the geckos reminded her of her own people. They were violent and pigeonholing, prone to attacking each other at perceived insults and to perpetuate the informal hierarchy. Both had primitive societies born from necessity. Much like an errant geppy, if Arama were discovered so far from home she would be smacked resoundingly and dragged back, but all for her own safety. The wasteland was brutal and demanded brutality in turn.  
Arama's rocketship came under attack from unseen but aggressive enemies. Chandy valiantly sacrificed himself to save the rest of the crew, and they mourned his passing appropriately, with a traditional Twisted Hair funeral. Playtime was over. If she was gone too long, her absence would be noted and her grandfather would dispatch searchers. If she didn't limit her time in her secret space, it would be discovered and she'd never be able to return again. She hated her grandfather.  
She hated the other children of the Twisted Hairs, too. After she buried her rocketship and obscured her markings she returned to the tribe. She slipped past the camp guards with ease, well-practiced at eluding authority despite her young age. She similarly eluded the women who watched the children. They marshaled the tribe's young into the meeting circle in the center of the village every day, for safety and convenience. None of the other children had noticed Arama's absence, and she quietly hoped they would not notice her now that she returned. She spent most of her time trying to be inconspicuous, which was always interpreted as an invitation for harassment.  
Her peer Big-Nose noticed her efforts to make herself smaller. He was large for his age, but dumb. Whenever he saw Arama the unnamed he felt confusing feelings. He felt like he liked her a lot, but he also hated her a lot. He was jealous of her, of how smart she was, of how pretty she was. He felt like he was unworthy of her attention. He decided to make himself feel less inferior by insulting her.  
“Hey 'Rama, why don't you have any friends? Is it because you're smelly?” even if she weren't crouched on the ground, hugging her knees and trying to sink into the earth Big-Nose would have towered over her by nearly a foot. There was only one boy in the tribe aged eight who was taller than him and that child was certainly not Arama, who was uncommonly small for her age. She tried to ignore him.  
“Yeah, is it because you're stuck-up?” a young girl named Paayu-hoya added her own criticism to Big-Nose's goading. She personally disliked Arama, interpreting her aloofness as snobbishness, but she and Big-Nose were soon joined by plenty of other kids who had no personal motivations. They were simply seizing the opportunity to gang up on someone smaller and weaker, a pastime common of children everywhere.  
Arama, to her credit, tried to ignore the childish taunts, but they soon became overwhelming. She stood up, looked Big-Nose in the eyes, and said, “Shut up.”  
Big-Nose pushed her into the dirt. The other children laughed but Arama was on her feet quickly, too fast for Big-Nose to block her swing. If it weren't for the rock clutched tight in her fist he wouldn't have even flinched, but as it was he fell to the ground with blood pouring from his nose. Arama took the opportunity and pounced on him, smacking him in the face again with the rock. She raised her fist to do it again but was restrained by a calloused, elderly hand.  
“Fuck me with a knife, where'd she even get the rock!” her grandfather Harpy swore. He lifted his wayward granddaughter by the wrist bodily off of her bloodied and weeping victim and pulled the bloody stone from her fist, “You!” he barked at one of the young women tasked with watching the children, “Take her away!”  
“I will talk to you later,” he harshly addressed Arama.  
Bitter Wind dragged the girl away from the other children. The elder's granddaughter always seemed to be the center of every problem among the tribe's young. Arama did not react at all, letting Bitter Wind drag her through the village by the hand without protest or even acknowledgment.  
“I'm not dealing with you! We will find someone who will,” Bitter Wind sighed, irritated. She had more things on her mind than taking care of the elder's spoiled granddaughter. She privately assured herself she would not allow her own children to behave so poorly.  
They came upon Dark Mother's tent, a ramshackle yurt made of scraps of tarp and discarded hides on the edge of the village. Dark Mother was ostensibly the tribe's herbalist and healer, but that did not afford her much respect. Mostly she was shunned, which made her a perfect caretaker for the pariah child. Bitter Wind told Arama to wait outside the tent and then entered.  
“Dark Mother, are you busy?” the inside of Dark Mother's hovel was smoke-filled from burning incense and leaves. The smell was overpowering, but could not entirely mask the scent of death and decay which hung over the woman. There were plenty of rumors that Dark Mother was a witch, and entering her tent, where small bones tied to the ceiling dangled at eye-level and smoke obscured everything besides, Bitter Wind could not help but feel there was truth to the rumors.  
“I am not busy,” Dark Mother replied slowly and after a long pause from her position on the floor. Bitter Wind couldn't tell if she was looking at her or not.  
“Will you look after the nameless child? The granddaughter of elder Harpy? I have too many things to do or I would do it,” Bitter Wind asked. It took a few moments again for Dark Mother to reply.  
“I will watch the nameless child,” Dark Mother answered. Bitter Wind dragged Arama into the tent and without so much as a goodbye was gone.  
Arama took a seat on the floor next to Dark Mother. The yurt was less smokey closer to the ground, and her eyes stung less. Dark Mother did not look at Arama, and for nearly an hour they sat in silence. Arama liked Dark Mother. Unlike the other women of the tribe Dark Mother did not belittle her or chastise her, did not try to make her do work. Dark Mother simply sat with her, and even though it was boring it was calming. It did not take long for Arama to begin to fidget, though.  
Dark Mother looked over at her with dull surprise, as though for the past forty minutes she had not acknowledged Arama because she did not realize Arama was there. Her movements were very slow, and she stared appraisingly at Arama for several minutes.  
“You are the nameless one,” she said.  
“No, I'm Arama. My grandfather's Aram Harpy,” Arama explained patiently to Dark Mother. Sometimes Dark Mother forgot things and had to be reminded, Arama knew. She stayed in the tent with Dark Mother for the rest of the afternoon, until her grandfather came to get her. He took her home, to his slightly more permanent and much nicer home made of clay.  
Arama was not happy to be home with her grandfather. Her heart fluttered, scared of what he would say or do to her, but she swallowed her fear. He crouched down to her level, looking at her straight in the eye. He opened his palm, revealing that he still had the stone she had used to attack Big-Nose. Earlier in the day she had named it Merica, and now it was stained with the blood of her attacker.  
“Do you see this?” he asked her. She nodded her head. He smacked her on the cheek with the rock, not as hard as he could have, but hard enough that it would leave a bruise. She looked back into his eyes with burning hatred.  
“I know what it feels like to get hit with a rock,” she said, small and defiant. He smacked her again, much harder, with the back of his palm.  
“You will learn respect! You will learn obedience!” he roared. He was out of practice at disciplining a child, and Arama was much more difficult than her father. He had to resort to his most severe punishment earlier and more often with her, “You will go in the box until you are ready to apologize and be a good girl!”  
He dragged her to an old wood cabinet, a pre-war relic, and locked her inside. She did not resist but as he shut the door he looked into her eyes like two small suns of fury and loathing.  
Once she knew her grandfather was out of earshot Arama sobbed. She cried for hours, desperate choking sobs and a stream of tears that could not be wiped away no matter how hard she tried. Eventually she could cry no more.  
After darkness fell the door of the cabinet opened.  
“Hey 'Rama,” said Heart. He could tell his little sister had been crying. He knew she cried a lot, and it always made him miserable. He wished his sister was happier. “I brought you some food.”  
He handed her some gecko meat and flatbread. Arama didn't realize how hungry she was until she devoured it all. She had missed lunch by escaping to the beach and she had missed dinner because she was locked in a cabinet.  
“I was hunting today, with Raven and Xon and Kwey. We killed a pronghorn. Grandpa was proud,” Heart added, embarrassed but proud. He could not help bragging, even though he did not want to rub it in that he was their grandfather's clear favorite. “I heard you beat up Big-Nose today. He looked pretty bad when I saw him.”  
“They'll have to change his name to Broke-Nose now,” Arama joked proudly. Heart smiled but it was a sad smile.  
“I wish you wouldn't get in so much trouble,” he told her, “I wish you were sleeping in our room tonight. If anybody is mean to you, I'll beat them up, okay? Don't beat them up and get in trouble anymore. I'll take care of it,” tears welled in his eyes. Arama could see them. She wished she could fit in with the rest of the tribe like he did. She wished she wouldn't have to defend herself so often, not for her own sake but for her brother's. He was maybe the only person in the whole tribe who actually cared about her, and she knew it made him sad that she was sad. That hurt more than all the rocks in the world. She felt like she was about to cry again.  
“Okay Heart. I won't get in trouble any more,” she said quietly. Heart hugged her and said goodnight, then closed the cabinet door and went to bed. Arama laid awake for awhile longer, resting her head on the cabinet wall and clutching herself tightly, trying to keep her brother's hug all through the night.


	41. Let It Bleed

Let It Bleed  
Athena had never seen Ouroboros so shaken. For as long as she had known of it, Ouroboros was an oasis, separated from the wasteland by geography, politics, and deception, a bastion of culture and immune to the dangerously volatile conditions of the wasteland. For more than a decade it was untouchable.  
She was surprised at how prepared Ouroboros was for attack. As soon as they went on lockdown, she was shuttled behind an already established barricade by a coordinator and given orders to fire at anyone until the all-clear was sent out. She had walked past the barricade every day for a year without realizing it. It dawned on her while she waited with her laser pistol drawn that much of the architecture of Ouroboros was designed for defense. Although she had never been prepped on what to do in the event of an attack it was clear that there was a well-thought-out plan.  
What wasn't prepared for, however, was the aftermath. The Goddess had been quietly planning for assault by the Legion for years, building up strength and training her followers how to repel a massive Legion attack. She was confident her machinations would escape the attention of Caesar and his men, but was not so proud as to assume it would always be that way, that there wouldn't be a tipping point eventually. She assumed the Legion would eventually catch wind of her plots and retaliate. She miscalculated, however, in assuming that the tipping point would draw the ire of the entire Legion. For years she'd plotted in secret for the great battle that would decide the course of the southwest wasteland, devising ruthless ways to compensate for the Legion's superior size and unwavering devotion. She believed it would all come to a head in a single massive conflict, with no ambiguity. But this was different.  
The bodies collected totaled about one hundred and the estimate was that about fifty had been disintegrated by energy weapons, leaving one hundred and fifty total. A single Centuriae and their slaves out of hundreds. It left questions needing answers. The Goddess held council in the main hall of Ouroboros' temple. Daughters from all over the wasteland found seats in the gallery or stood on the floor. The Goddess herself took her seat of silken pillows on a raised dais surrounded by incense burners. Her throne at the end of the hall, behind and above a half circle of chairs occupied by her most esteemed priestesses. Although she appeared before her Daughters very rarely, she knew she needed to be among them in this time of crisis.  
“She's much smaller than I thought,” Soledad, Athena's best friend, was called back from her Utah tribe to participate in the council.  
“How large did you think the Goddess was?” Athena whispered back, egging Soledad on “Twenty stories tall?” Admittedly the first thing she noticed when she saw the Goddess was how small Hecate looked.  
Soledad chuckled uncomfortably, “Well, maybe. I didn't think she was so... human-sized.”  
The main hall of the pyramid was packed to the brim with Daughters of all stripes. Some Harpies in the most remote corners of the southwest wasteland could not be in attendance, and many Maenads were attending to more important business, but it was without a doubt the largest congregation of Daughters that Athena had ever seen. She scanned the ranks of women and noted with pleasure that Arama was not in attendance.  
As she spent more time among the Daughters of Ouroboros Athena found her faith in the Goddess shaken by the Goddess's own faith in Arama, now known as Julia. She discovered that the Goddess appointed Julia her High Priestess sometime before Athena had been cast out of the Crazy Horns, a discovery which made her blood boil. She had almost abandoned the faith then and there, but two things kept her in Ouroboros. The first was her fear of Julia. She was scared of her. Their encounter in the Maenad bar had cowed Athena; taught her just how unhinged Julia had become. The second reason she remained loyal was her fear of the Goddess, which outstripped her fear of Julia by far.  
When Athena lived among the Crazy Horns she taught them to fear and worship the Goddess through a variety of means. She preached, she proselytized, and she gave aid all in the name of Hecate, but her efforts all paled in comparison to the Goddess's own demonstrations. The Goddess was perhaps small in stature, but her presence was felt across the wasteland. Before Athena came to the Crazy Horns, a tribe neighboring to the south of Salt Lake received a Daughter carrying the teachings of Hecate.  
They were targeted for conversion first as they were the most powerful tribe in the area, extorting other tribes for food and slaves much like Athena's own Twisted Hairs had done before the Legion. They were known as the Ichorous and they were strong. A Daughter approached them and was greeted warmly, at first. But soon she began to speak of the Goddess, and the tribe's chieftain, Let-It-Bleed, was insulted. He was warchief of the Great Salt Lakes region, and much of his power derived from the belief that there was no one more powerful than him. And a belief was all it was, as thanks to his skills in battle and intimidation he had successfully aged past his prime and could no longer control the Ichorous through strength alone. His authority had become a con, and belief in the Goddess Hecate was a threat to his power.  
His solution was cruel and cunning, although ultimately short-sighted. He sought to make a fool of Hecate's messenger, to denigrate Hecate through her missionary and mock her for not retaliating. Let-It-Bleed betrayed the Daughter he had welcomed. One night he tied her up and held her prisoner until the morning, when the tribe was awake. He then tied her to a large piece of sheet metal facing south. He invited her to fight back, to show them the full power of the Goddess. He encouraged his tribe to pelt her with rotten food. The Daughter calmly warned him of Hecate's retribution, but did nothing to stop him. Let-It-Bleed laughed.  
“Let's see your goddess come find your grave,” he boasted half to her and half to his people. He put on a show. He smeared the Daughter's face paint, repainting her face to a comical appearance. He spat on her, he stripped her naked and invited all the men of the tribe to grope her and ejaculate on her naked body. He humiliated her, repeatedly and thoroughly, mocking the Goddess and her authority all the while. She did not beg or plead or cry. She remained stoic and proud and dignified despite her tortures. Let-It-Bleed mutilated her and let her die tied to the sheet metal, facing south towards the Goddess. Before she was gone she said one last thing.  
“You have killed the Ichorous,” and again the chieftain laughed.  
They didn't bother to bury the Daughter. Her mangled corpse was left to rot in the sun. As time went by her body became less a threat from the Ichorous to the Goddess. Her remains became the Ichorous' albatross, a reminder of their sins and their shame. Hecate's retribution started slowly at first, too slowly for the tribe to realize what was happening. Animals began dying. Rotting gecko and bighorner corpses littered the plain immediately surrounding the Ichorous. The ground turned to poison. Children started to grow sick, in greater and greater numbers. A pall was cast over the tribe, and it only grew worse and worse. Other tribes began to refuse trade, fearing the deathly specter that haunted them. More and more of the tribe grew ill, with hideous diseases that covered their bodies in oozing pustules. The rotting body of the murdered Daughter took on a menacing appearance as her lips receded and her eyes rotted away. All that was left of her face was a hollow smile, a cruel scarecrow that delighted in the suffering of the men and women who made her that way.  
Neighboring tribes started to grow sick. In retribution they banded together, and slew the Ichorous who had not yet succumbed. Then the Daughters came, providing vaccines and cures. The Goddess's power had been witnessed, and it was terrifying. All of the Utah tribes knew the story of Let-It-Bleed and the Ichorous well. Even consumed by her hatred of Julia, Athena could not forget it. The body of the slain Daughter was recovered, and given special burial in the valley. Her name was Bao. She was known as Bao-Who-Died-For-The-Goddess.  
So Athena could not renounce the Goddess, as Let-It-Bleed had renounced the Goddess and had died covered in boils, knowing his blaspheme had killed everyone he loved. Thinking of the story of the Ichorous again made Athena feel an acute pain in her chest. She thought of the Crazy Horns, but only for a moment, as more than a moment was too painful.  
Atia knew nothing of the Goddess's retribution. She knew nothing of the Ichorous or any of the other tribes the Goddess had punished. But she was very familiar with the Legion.  
When the order went out to make Ouroboros combat-ready, as a non-combatant she was sealed away with other record-keeping noncombatants in the very back of the hall of records. She was scared but confident that whatever was happening the Daughters could handle it. More than anything she was scared for her son, who was in class with other children his age. Would he understand what was happening?  
She and the other record-keepers waited silently for awhile, not knowing what to expect. Someone brought up the question of exactly what was attacking Ouroboros, which inspired a whole range of terrifying guesses, but none more terrifying to Atia than the suggestion that it was a Legion attack.  
She was freed from the Legion for years but she still remembered them well. The cruelty, the misery, the smell of burning garbage and burning flesh. The moans and the screams of the crucified. The innumerable scores and scores of battle-hardened young men and boys marching in step, clashing metal spear on metal shield. The howling battle cries of the blood-mad, desperate for victory and unstoppable. She still saw them in her nightmares. One of the other record-keepers asked her why she was shaking. She couldn't admit it was because of her fear of the Legion.  
Her worst fears were confirmed after it was finished. Word spread quickly that the Legion had attacked Ouroboros, although there were conflicting stories on whether they had penetrated the valley or had been stopped at the corridor. At first there was celebration, jubilant exultations of victory against the most hated enemy of the southwest. Atia could not join in the celebration. She voiced her concerns.  
“How many attacked? Who was their leader? Are more coming?” she asked again and again and received unsatisfactory answers. Her fear spread like plague among the Daughters, and soon the Goddess was facing a full-scale panic among her devout.  
The Goddess called the Victory Council a week after the attack, and a day away from a fear-induced riot. Despite its upbeat name the Council was full of grim Daughters, scared and uncertain and not ready to be pleased with the answers they had been demanding for days. Atia had never seen the Goddess before, although there were paintings and statues dedicated to Hecate all throughout Ouroboros. In the main hall of the temple Hecate was obscured by a thick cloud of incense, and the dais she sat on was shrouded in poor light. Atia wondered if she was really there at all, or whether it was instead an old mannequin trussed up with a huge dreadlocked wig. It made her angry that the Goddess possibly wasn't even bothering to appear at her own Council, to her most dedicated followers. A thought occurred to Atia that perhaps there wasn't even a Goddess at all, that she was an elaborate lie established to enslave the Daughters. Paranoid visions flitted through her mind as she stood on the floor of the temple surrounded by two hundred other women. Atia thought of the most terrifying motives for inventing a false Goddess, and the Victory Council began.


	42. Road to Ouroboros

Road to Ouroboros  
Julia let out of Ouroboros with fire at her heels. She had a new drive, and she was more focused than she'd ever been in her life. She had finally dealt with her brother, a showdown that had been inevitable. She had done herself a disservice by not preparing for it, but it had happened and now he was dead and she was alive. Ever since she thought the air tasted amazing. It was as though a weight had been lifted from her shoulders and a thousand new doors opened all at once.  
The Legion attack on Ouroboros left some terrifying questions, and Julia personally went searching for answers. She knew she'd find them at the start of the Centriae's march to the valley of the Goddess.  
“We should've left one of them alive,” Bella panted when Julia stopped for a break. Julia shot her a nasty look, “Not the Dead Soul, obviously. I mean an easier target. I mean, the guards should have...” she trailed off uncomfortably.  
Bella was still shaken by Julia's odd behavior during the attack. Julia seemed to recover quickly, almost too quickly, but Bella was still unsure what had made Julia act so weird and what might set her off again. She'd been on pins and needles ever since.  
Julia brought Bella along to follow the Centuriae's trail in the event that it was obscured by the elements, but for miles the trail was as clean as though it had been paved.  
“These tracks,” Bella struggled for breath during another momentary break a few miles down the trail, “The Legion always leaves a wide trail, but this... it's like they wanted to be followed.”  
Julia had to agree. Even to the most indiscriminate eye the Centuriae's trail was clear. Deep footprints marching sixteen wide, discarded scraps of leather and cloth and trash, even some of the rocks beside the trail seemed to have been cut into. Most upsettingly, human shit littered the path, baking in the wasteland sun, as though no slave had been allowed to stop marching until they reached the valley. The Centuriae had made no attempt to conceal their path, in fact to the Daughters it looked like they deliberately made their trail more prominent.  
Julia was about to come to a conclusion about the attack when her thoughts were disturbed by a rifle retort and a pain in her thigh. A spray of arterial blood and bone fragment from Julia's left leg splattered the rocks. She whipped around pistol in hand and began firing blindly at the source of the shot while Bella dragged her to cover.  
“I'm fine, I'm fine!” Julia complained when Bella tried to check her leg, “Two o'clock, they're at two o'clock! Get your rifle out!” she screamed. The auto-inject stimpack strapped to her thigh had already gone into effect, but it wouldn't reset the bone. If anything it just made the job harder, as now muscles were growing back that forced her shattered femur into odd angles. It would hurt immensely if it weren't for the fact that she had already shot up a hit of med-x prior to the shooting.  
“Frumentarii!” Bella swore as she glared down her sights, “Here for us?”  
“I doubt it,” Julia grit her teeth and drew the Lady. Bella dropped a Frumentarius charging their position with an arc wielder in three shots. The assassin in the hills fired some return shots but only hit rock. Julia drew a bead on them through Lady's scope. There were two, not counting the one Bella removed. Assassins, possibly waiting for them? Maybe they were waiting for anyone who tried to follow the Centuriae's trail. But why? Julia thought she knew who they were after, but in order to confirm it she had to finish them off.  
Bella didn't give her a chance, though. With the cold, ruthless efficiency of a trained killer Bella sniped the Legionaries with her winchester, a family heirloom of the Fiasco family. She turned to Julia and quipped, “No wind.”  
“Good,” Julia rummaged in the pockets of her coat, “Search their bodies, bring back anything that looks like this,” she pulled out a small pewter coin and tossed it to Bella. Bella nodded her head, slung her rifle over her shoulder, and went to search the dead assassins.  
Julia sighed and pulled out her bowie knife, a relic from the NCR ranger she'd seduced and killed for her armor. She gripped her leg with her other hand and sliced open her thigh, a clean and precise cut. The knife was sterile, but her gloves weren't, so she was forced to re-align her femur using the blade. When it hurt a little too much she gave herself another dose of med-x. Her leg wasn't perfect, but it was the best she could do in the situation, so when her bone was more-or-less righted, she used another stimpack to seal the cut and tied her leg up with a splint. She finished as Bella returned.  
“Here,” Bella returned the coin with another like it. The coins were smaller than typical Legion coin, and didn't have any value. Any casual search would miss them. On one there was a design of a hunting dog, sharp nose pointed west. On the other was the same design, but gouged into the pewter was a crude x over the dog. Julia sighed again.  
“Alright, this is good news. They weren't here for us. Whoever attacked us, they were after the Centurion who found Ouroboros. Send a crow to the Goddess,” she started writing a message on a thin piece of paper, “We need to get a team to make a fake Centuriae trail leading away from Ouroboros.”  
Bella pulled a raven from inside her jacket and kissed it tenderly on the head. Julia tied the note to its leg, and Bella sent it away in the direction of the Goddess' ziggurat. “This isn't a trail,” Julia said, “This is a road. They made a road, right to us.”


	43. Hero of the Legion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> possibly my favorite chapter

Hero of the Legion  
The Goddess enigmatically refused to answer any questions at the Victory Council. She sat on her special throne, on her raised dias, behind a small guard of Sibyls. There were many questions levied at her, but they were all intercepted by her priestesses or ignored outright. It seemed as though she was waiting for something, determining the right moment to speak or anticipating the question she wanted to answer above all others.  
Her priestesses kept the crowd calm, answering most questions with the information the Goddess had provided them with. The attack was a single centuriae. There will likely be no more attacks. Ouroboros will not need to relocate. The Goddess knew it would happen and had previously taken steps to contain it. No, Caesar doesn't know about Hecate or her power. Finally the question the Goddess had been waiting for came.  
“Will we retaliate?” Once the matter of Ouroboros' and the Daughters' safety was resolved, it was only natural for the Daughters to move on to vengeance. A priestess unwisely attempted to answer after a moment's silence but the Goddess quieted her with a simple gesture.  
“Shouldn't we take the fight to them? This is an act of aggression. What are you saying by not killing a hundred legionaries for every one of our dead?!” the Daughter continued, growing indignant. It was Sibyl Yvana, still grieving over the loss of the guard captain. The Goddess was fascinated by her outburst of emotion. The Goddess knew very few of her followers personally, but she knew all of them from dossiers she kept. She had long seen her followers as abstract concepts, the way she observed much of the wasteland. For so long she had seen Yvana and her sisters as a collection of data and reports, and now to be confronted by a living breathing person with thoughts and feelings made the Goddess bemused. She did not dwell on her detachment long before beginning her speech.  
“The man who led the attack on Ouroboros was a Centurion named Scipio Venator, and he is the greatest hero the Legion has ever known,” her voice echoed through the hall, stunning the Daughters into silence. Hecate had established a PA system for just such an occasion. It wouldn't fool any Daughters from vaults, but Daughters like Athena who were from tribes were awed. Even Atia had never heard someone speak over a PA before, and concluded that the Goddess' voice was so much louder than Caesars she must be divine. Her voice was so loud it took a moment for her words to actually sink in. Hecate waited.  
“Centurion Scipio Venator, a man unlike his hundreds of companions, was able to decipher patterns. He was able to look past what was immediately in front of him, to correlate data and create a picture,” even as she spoke, the Goddess knew her high priestess was burning all of the meticulously collected data and collaborated facts that Scipio had compiled over the years to ashes, “A picture which revealed the greatest conspiracy against Caesar and his Legion that the southwest wasteland will ever see. He uncovered a threat so grave, it takes precedence over all other enemies of the Legion. And so he acted.”  
The Daughters were confused. Very few of them had ever heard the Goddess speak, much less praise a Centurion or any Legionary. Did this man not just attack us? they wondered. Did the actions of this man not lead to the deaths of some of our own? To praise him, as the Goddess seemed to be doing, was in poor taste at the very least.  
“He defied the will of Caesar himself, because he knew no one would see the threat like he did. None of his peers would see the patterns and put together the threat posed against the Legion, so massive in scope as to be unbelievable. And they didn't believe it. This man, the Centurion Scipio Venator is the greatest hero of the Legion, as not only did he take action against their greatest enemy, he did so risking the ridicule and contempt that his peers would no doubt award him. He hoped, against hope, that his sacrifice would lead the Legion here, that his desperate actions would save the Legion he loved so dear.”  
“But he has failed. The Legion is no more aware of the threat posed to them now than they were before. Centurion Scipio Venator is dead and so are his Legionaries. He has failed, but no more than the Legion has failed him. For the Centurion's sacrifice, for his hard work, for his obsessive dedication to Caesar and the Legion, they have branded him a traitor. A pariah. Even now, only a few scant weeks after his disappearance, they are already spitting and cursing his name,” she spoke with vitriol but was smiling a wolfish grin, “This, my Daughters, is how the Legion treats its heroes. And if the Legion treats its heroes this way, with rejection and scorn; then we, the Legion's greatest enemy, are assured victory!”


	44. The Children of the Tribes

The Children of the Tribes  
“I want to head my own initiative,” Julia told the Goddess. It hadn't been quite a month since the attack on Ouroboros. Scipio Venator's assault was mostly resolved. The Legionaries following Venator were sent far away from the valley by a fake trail, and the dead were buried. Even the Legion dead were buried, although without the rites given to Hounds and Daughters. The Legion was once again blind to the machinations of the Goddess and life had returned to normal.  
“Your own initiative?” the Goddess asked. They sat on plush cushions in the Goddess' private quarters, wreathed in fragrant smoke and smoking bufo from a hookah. They shared a single mouthpiece, a privilege given to no other Daughter and a quiet symbol of their oft-unspoken bond, “What sort of initiative?”  
“Information gathering. Compiling the history of the Legion,” when Julia returned from Vault 29 and the ruins of the Twin Mothers village she still felt imbued with an incredible sense of purpose. She felt compelled to take on more responsibility. She was no longer content to merely act on the will of the Goddess.  
The idea came to her in a flash. She explained it in full to Atia.  
“All of these men, these Legionaries, they all come from tribes, right? Local tribes?” she gesticulated wildly with her empty coffee mug. They were in the archives, near the back where the oldest records were stored. Atia sat on a dusty armchair, hands wrapped around her knees and shoes off. Julia was pacing the area.  
“Yes,” Atia answered.  
“And all of these women, all of the Daughters, they come from tribes, too,” Julia continued, “Well, most of them. Avata's from the Wild-Thorne family farm, and Bella's from some hick town, but those are basically tribes, and their brothers joined the Legion,” she rambled, wide-eyed. Atia nodded her head, not really listening. She was thinking about whether or not she'd get a drink before collecting her young son, Julius, from class, “But the Daughters come from the same tribes. It's all from the same tribes, basically. We keep records on everybody, and the Legion keeps records, right?”  
“Yes. Well, there was,” Atia was pulled from her daydreaming. She admitted she couldn't vouch for the current Legion, but when she was a slave and before she was awarded to Aurelius of Phoenix she was intimately familiar with Caesar's record-keeping.  
“If the Legion keeps records of tribes they've conquered and slaves they've taken...”  
“They do,” Atia confirmed.  
“We can find out what happened to... to everyone's family. We can find out what tribes everyone is from, and if the Legion keeps records of troop movements...”  
“They do,” Atia confirmed again.  
“Then we can find out where they are now!” Julia was so excited her hands shook, “We can tell everyone where their brothers are, where their sisters are, where their friends are in the Legion. What happened to them, if they're dead,” Julia swallowed a lump in her throat, “Where does the Legion keep their records?”  
Atia frowned, “Well, the most recent records usually travel with Caesar himself. I think,” she picked at her eyebrow and chewed her lip, “Sorry, it's been awhile.”  
“It's alright. Any information you can give me is useful,” Julia smiled sympathetically.  
“Okay, well, most of the records probably travel with Caesar. Some Centurions might keep their own, but Caesar keeps most of them. If they aren't with him, they're in Flagstaff. In the War Room Headquarters in the center of the city.”  
“It's not like they're the best records or anything,” Atia continued. She had been most impressed with the Legion's written history when she could only compare them to her tribe's oral traditions, but the fastidious and detailed record-keeping of the Daughters put the Legion to shame, “But it ought to be enough to reunite at least some people.”  
Julia was certain The Goddess wouldn't allow her Daughters to reunite with their missing family, nor did Julia want that, but she could at least let them know how their family was doing.  
“I want to collect data on the family your Daughters have in the Legion. I think it will help morale, to see where their relatives are and what happened to them after they were separated. It will help us paint a clearer picture of the Legion, not only their movements and tactics but their very soul. Corroborating information from our Daughters and their records so we can know them entirely,” Julia had rehearsed her pitch again and again but there was little she could do to dress it up. Either the Goddess would approve or she wouldn't, it didn't matter how Julia presented her idea.  
After Julia finished the Goddess was quiet. She looked for signs in the smoke that danced lazily around them. More than anything she wanted information, for information was more powerful than any force in the wasteland, but she was hesitant to know too much about her most hated enemy. What affect would it have if her Daughters started seeing the Legion not as a faceless antagonist, but as real people, men with names and faces that were once dear to them? The Goddess disagreed that it would help morale, but then a vision came to her. Out of the smoke came a face, with a wide brow and large round eyes. It was the face of a young man, and she was so overwhelmed by him she was driven to tears. She felt the longing in her heart to know this young man, and she realized that her Daughters already knew their families were part of the Legion. Letting them know the exact details of their brothers, sons, sisters, and daughters still enslaved would help quiet their troubled hearts, even if it invited new problems.  
“My most trusted daughter Julia, you may do your work with my blessing. Find our brothers in the Legion, let us know of them. Let us weep for our fallen, and worry for our brothers who still fight Caesar's war. Let us dream of rescuing our sisters still in bondage, and weep for their plight. Let us hope our Daughters are inspired to hate the Legion even more, knowing greater the injustices Caesar foists upon their blood,” she lovingly stroked Julia's face, and kissed her on the forehead to seal her approval. Julia now had the authority to lead Operation Remus. Little did she know her vanity project would soon change the face of the southwest wasteland forever.


	45. Babble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i hope the lesbian subtext is not lost on anybody

Babble  
“Never point a gun at anything you aren't willing to shoot,” Julia held Julius' arms up while he pointed a derringer at a metal target, “breathe in, and fire just before you breathe out. Fill the empty space with your bullet.”  
Julius took a deep breath, aimed with one eye down the derringer's barrel, and pulled the trigger. The hollow chamber clicked.  
“Did I do it?” he looked back at Julia expectantly. Julia smiled.  
“You let your breath go a little too soon. You want to hold it in just a little longer,” she told him. He frowned, “You'll get it eventually,” she smiled warmly. He smiled back at her.  
Julius was five years old, nearly six. He still took his asthma medication on a daily basis, which was interfering with his combat drills in class. The young boys and girls of Hecate's school trained to fight with simple weapons, mostly sticks of varying length. Facsimiles of swords and daggers and spears. Julia thought it was old-fashioned, but a good place to start. Older children who showed proficiency with simple melee weapons would go on to train with firearms, but because of Julius' respiratory problems it was unlikely he would receive firearm training.  
Since the night Atia had come to Julia for help with her son, Julia had taken a personal interest in helping Julius. She became something of a second mother to him. She babysat for Atia, took Julius to class in the mornings, asked him about his day in the afternoon, and fed him. She was there when he first learned to walk, and she taught him his first word. She was pissed he wouldn't get the chance to learn how to fire a gun, so she was going to teach him herself.  
Every training session began with the same phrase. “Never point a gun at anything you aren't willing to shoot.” So far they hadn't trained with live ammunition, to lessen the risk of injury. Julia just wanted him to grow comfortable with guns.  
“It's heavy,” Julius complained about the derringer when Julia stopped holding his arms up.  
“Life is heavy,” Julia responded automatically. Julia found herself often just repeating what Julius said back to him in nonsensical ways. She speculated very little of what she actually said to Julius meant anything at all, and fleetingly wondered if he thought everything she said to him was meaningless, but didn't dwell on it much. She decided maybe everything she said really was meaningless. In this way he humbled her. Even if he considered all her nonsense profound she knew better. Her wisdom was meaningless and her orders pointless. All the same she felt it was her duty to try and instill in him values she found attractive and moral. So she continued to babble, hoping it would have a positive effect on her young charge.  
“Practice a couple more times without my help. Just hold it up,” Julia lifted his arms again when he dropped them, keeping both hands firmly wrapped around the grip, “and pretend like you're shooting a gecko, okay? Breathe in, shoot, breathe out.”  
Nothing was more precious and valuable than young innocent life, as nothing was more rare in the wasteland. Julia held a fragile gem in her hands and she had no idea what to do with it, eternally scared her scarred and calloused hands would mangle it beyond all beauty. She was so hard and jagged, all sharp angles and hard steel that she struggled to be soft for her surrogate son. The wasteland is cruel enough, she figured. She might as well try to be kind and caring. To her, kind and caring was teaching Julius to fire a pistol, but not loading it until she felt he was ready.  
It made perfect sense to her. She and her brother had been taught to use weapons as toddlers. The wasteland was a dangerous place, and learning good weapons skills was necessary. Atia, however, held a different opinion.  
Julia saw Atia furiously march through the training yard towards her and Julius. Atia was angrier than she'd ever been in her life. She marched quickly towards Julia and her son and snatched Julius away lightning-fast, so that Julius dropped the derringer on the ground.  
“Just what do you think you're doing with my son?” she yelled at Julia. Julia recoiled and blinked. She answered before fully understanding what was happening.  
“Teaching him proper weapon handling,” she said. Atia's eyebrows danced in surprise at her bluntness. Julia composed herself a little more and offered a weak excuse, “Everyone needs to learn proper weapon handling.”  
Atia realized the gulf between her and Julia's lives and expectations. Her expression slackened and she released a deep sigh. “Julia, you can't teach my son to fire a pistol.”  
“Why?” Julia asked uncharacteristically innocent, “I learned to wield a knife at that age. A derringer isn't much more dangerous. Besides, it's unloaded,” she said churlishly.  
“You can't teach my son to fire a pistol,” Atia repeated, much more slowly and firmly, “He's just a young boy. This,” she picked up the derringer in her hand, waving the barrel at Julia, “he probably thinks this is a toy. What happens when he wants to play with a toy that's loaded, and fires it at his friends?”  
“S'not a toy,” Julius muttered grumpily into his mother's ear.  
“Proper weapon safety means proper respect for the weapon,” now it was Julia's turn to be angry. She pulled the derringer out of Atia's hand by the barrel, “I'm teaching your son to respect and fear pistols. Would you rather he be sheltered and incapable of wielding a pistol safely like you?”  
“What is wrong with you? Don't teach my son to use guns,” Atia reiterated. Julia was scared. Teaching Julius weapon handling was one of the few things she felt capable of. Julia was often much busier and less nurturing than Atia, and teaching Julius to use a gun was one of the few opportunities that Julia had to bond with him.  
“Look, Atia, they're already teaching him how to use knives and spears and clubs in class. You can't shelter him forever, it just isn't how things are done. I promise I won't teach him anymore firearms, but please let me give him some extra knife training. I promise he'll be safe,” Julia pleaded.  
Atia considered her proposal. She could see the need and the fear behind Julia's desire to train her son in combat, and acknowledged that she would rather have Julia do it than anyone else. She trusted Julia, and wanted her to have a hand in raising Julius. She relented.  
“Alright, no guns, but knives and spears are alright,” she told Julia, “I trust you.”  
They looked into each other's eyes for awhile, Julia resting her hand on Atia's shoulder. Atia set Julius down and they embraced, then took him home together.


	46. Romulus

Romulus  
Julia's efforts bore fruit. Operation Remus compiled data on thousands of Legionaries. Although the records the Legion kept varied greatly from centurion to centurion, Remus gathered the histories of Legionaries' induction to the ranks to their current postings (and in many cases, their deaths).  
Due to the expansion of the Legion and the enslavement of more and more Hecate-worshipping tribes, the Daughters had plenty of resources to spare for Remus. There was already a well-established network of Maenads infiltrating the higher echelons of the Legion who (not through any sort of respect afforded them, but rather through the narrow doorway trivialization provided) had unlimited access to Legion records. Using small spy cameras they page by page collected each and every written record the Legion had. Once developed, the photos were given to Sibyls and the numerous Harpies who lost their tribes, including Athena, who was desperate to know what had become of her own brother Raven. The Sibyls and Harpies recorded every page into a computer algorithm designed by Tiegan to compile the data by Legionary. Tiegan's algorithm was so advanced it would track Legionaries not just by name but also by Contubernia and Centuriae. Print-outs were available on request.  
Athena was excited for the assignment, even though it was the brainchild of the woman she feared and hated above all others. She was taught to read and write when she joined the Daughters of Hecate, but lacked the aptitude with either to become a Sibyl. Although her reports on the Crazy Horns admittedly contained some creative spelling, Athena had always carried a few select books close to her heart. Chief among them was a handwritten diary of a teenage girl who lived before the war. She kept it close at all times. Since leaving it behind with the Crazy Horns she was interested in keeping her own diary, but her literacy had deteriorated in the three years she'd spent in hedonist bliss. Transcribing Legion records was a good way to re-familiarize herself with written language. It would get her back into the habit of writing.  
Athena wasn't the only one enthused about Remus. Almost all of Hecate's Daughters had lost someone to the Legion, and all had been carrying secret hurt in their hearts. Many came to the Sibyls of Operation Remus demanding printouts, but many went away unhappy. Some Legionaries had been given new names by Caesar, their old names found only in the memories of their sisters. Many more Daughters were given a link to the family they lost only to lose them all over again. Life in the Legion was hard, and many men had maybe two entries in the official records, their induction and their death. The loss of life that resulted from total war was astonishing when a clear overview was compiled, and the Legion only recorded the deaths of their own. Surely for the Legion to have the grasp they had on the southwest wasteland meant that their enemies totaled even more dead. Sometimes Athena wondered how there could be anyone left in the former four corners at all. Desperate families had struggled for so long to regain a foothold in such a dangerous place and now it seemed like all that effort was being wiped away by Caesar. What was left in place of all those dead? Fertilizer for the soil, Athena thought bitterly, not that anything worth harvesting ever grows here. Just death and ruin.  
Unlike many of her friends, though, Athena received good or at least not bad news from Operation Remus. Her brother was alive and stationed way the hell out of harm's way in Phoenix. Raven had apparently disobeyed an order (the records didn't say what the order was) and as punishment was relocated away from the front lines. Somehow, judging by the records, Raven considered it a punishment, too. He had more and more discipline problems in Phoenix, and although Athena secretly hoped that his 'discipline problems' were defiance of some of the Legion's more repulsive rules, she knew deep down that was probably not the case. In any case he was safe, and that was more than most Daughters could say of their family. Poor Soledad had lost all three of her brothers and a sister. Athena's roommate Sunflower's father had been killed by the Legion when they conquered her tribe (she wasn't there but the Legion's records stated they killed all the men older than thirty) and one of her brothers had been killed in an arena fight by another member of his own contubernia. Sunflower's other brother wasn't mentioned at all, presumably another tribal whose name had been changed by the whims of Caesar.  
Atia already knew the fates of her sisters. She had tried to use her influence to make their slavery in the Legion less grueling, but eventually the wasteland ground them down to nothing. They were dead or nearly just by the time she had been sold to Aurelius. So she didn't have much interest in Operation Remus.  
Julia also knew the fate of her sibling without Remus. She knew her brother was dead. She even knew Caesar had changed his name. Out of all the Daughters in Ouroboros she was probably the only one who had seen her brother since his forced induction into the Legion. She hadn't started Remus for her, she told herself. She created Remus for the Daughters. So they could know about their family. So they could have some of the privilege Julia enjoyed when she spent those scant few days with Heart. With the dead soul.  
Yet all the same Julia had secretly printed out a copy of her brother's records with the Legion. She was in the tin shack on the outskirts of Ouroboros. The records sat on the table in front of her. She played with her hair nervously, injected a hit of med-x between her toes. After thirty minutes of staring at the small stack of papers and feeling the opiates slink through her veins, she picked up the first page.


	47. Heart & Soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> here we go

Heart & Soul  
“What shall we call him?” the Priestess of Caesar asked her companion as she shaved Heart's dreadlocks off. They were two old women speaking in English and Heart couldn't understand them.  
They were in the ruins of Kingman, which was not Legion territory yet, but the locals granted the Legion the right to make camp. The trip wasn't far and Heart was used to long marches. In fact, he had been to Kingman once before in a Twisted Hair raiding party. It was the first time he'd killed another person. A man almost twice his age, and Heart had cut him down with a chop to the knees and then hacked his head off. He hadn't thought anything of it at all, too caught up in the raid to consider the enormity of his act. As he was marched into Kingman with the Legion local tribals who came to watch jeered at him.  
“The prince of the knotty hairs is a slave now!” they shouted, but Heart couldn't understand them any more than he could understand Caesar's priestesses. He wouldn't care anyway. Aram Heart had lived as the chosen son of the Twisted Hairs for his scant ten years, and it had given him a deep reserve of arrogance to draw upon even at his most vulnerable, as he was right at that moment, flanked by legionaries twice his size. He hadn't been brought to Kingman in chains, but the locals were right. He was a slave now.  
The legionaries knew better than to say anything, but each in turn sneered at the young tribal's confidence. They had seen other young boys walk into Legion camps the same way, head held high and an impudent pout on their well-fed lips. The legionaries knew that for children not broken by the walk to camp itself, training would soon begin.  
They lead him to a large tent in the center of the camp. If Caesar was visiting it would be his tent, but for now it was being used by the Centurions and the Priestesses of Mars. It was the nerve center common to any Legion outpost. Heart thought it was where he would be staying. As he was brought inside by a Priestess he looked around and decided that the accommodations were acceptable. In a dark corner a man wearing metal armor wrote something down on a piece of paper. He watched Heart walk past but he betrayed no emotion. He had a large scar gouged across the center of his face.  
The inside of the tent smelled reassuringly of brahmin leather. It was hot even though the sun was near gone over the horizon. The priestess lead him to a part of the tent which smelled heavily of incense, mixing with leather to create a pleasing if not nauseating aroma. Small sculptures of animal bones were scattered about. It reminded him of Dark Mother's tent, except much nicer. Thinking of Dark Mother reminded Heart of his sister.  
Heart was suddenly deeply sad. It hadn't occurred to him how his leaving might affect his little sister. Arama was in trouble all the time, and he looked out for her. Now who would beat up Big-Nose so he would leave her alone? Who would give her food when their grandfather sent her to bed without any? Who would Arama even talk to now that Heart was gone? Heart's eyes got glassy and far away, and he struggled to stay in the chair the priestess sat him in. He was filled with an overwhelming urge to return, to head back to Dry Wells and envelop his sister in his arms. But he knew it was too late. He vowed someday to make it back to her, to find his little sister again.  
“What shall we call him?” asked the Priestess of Mars, her voice dry and sharp like crackling wood. She and her companion had been trusted with a most important mission by the mighty Caesar, assimilation. They were smart and cruel older women, and they took to their task with the religious fervor their titles implied. They looked over the Twisted Hair's peace offering and realized his symbolic significance. Many more Twisted Hairs would join the Legion, they knew, but here was the soul of the tribe. The priestess took a clean knife from a ceremonial bowl and set to hacking off Heart's beautiful dreadlocks. She innately understood their importance, even if she didn't understand the intricate and personal story woven within them. Ten years of bravery and strength were torn away with each pull of the knife. Victories and defeats, hunts and festivals were all torn away from the little boy of the Twisted Hairs. Heart didn't react at all, his eyes still glassy and far away with grim thoughts of his precious little sister.  
“Look at his eyes. Empty as a beggar's bowl,” said the other priestess. Her gnarled hands shook with delight as she pointed at Heart's big brown eyes. She smiled a vicious little smile. “We'll call him Dead Soul. Mortuus Anima, the dead soul.”  
The ritual complete, they informed the centurion of the recruit's new name and the centurion noted it in his ledger. The priestesses informed him with vicious glee that the Twisted Hairs were Caesar's property now, even if they didn't know it. While they were distracted, Mortuus grabbed a piece of his dreadlocks and stashed it on his person. It was the only piece of Aram Heart that he had left.


	48. Heart & Soul Part II

Heart & Soul Part II  
The newly-christened Mortuus Anima trained with thirteen other boys. They all slept in the same dingy, miserable barracks and all wore the same dingy, miserable armor. The barracks were actually a pair of old campers wielded together, as most of the camp was made up of ancient rusting campers. Mortuus realized how foolish he'd been to think he'd be allowed to stay in the opulent center of the Legion camp. He blushed with embarrassment when he was lead to his actual quarters, two ancient skeletons of recreation vehicles bonded together to make one long shack. Somehow, even though the sun had completely set the inside of the shack was hotter than the day had been. Although it wasn't as nice as Caesar's tent, Mortuus knew it was reasonable living space for someone brand new to Caesar's tribe.  
The armor he was impressed with. It was stiff leather, and although it was pathetic compared to the metal-clad centurion he'd seen in Caesar's tent, or even the armor worn by the legionaries who brought him to Kingman, it was still better armor than anything he wore in his previous life. The fact that the other twelve boys he was meeting were afforded similar armor left him amazed at the Legion's resources.  
The drill instructor introduced Mortuus Anima to the boys one by one. At first Mortuus couldn't quite tell why the man kept calling him that, but eventually came to realize that the words 'Mortuus Anima' were his new name. He was introduced to each boy with a sharp finger point that caused each boy to flinch. The instructor pointed “Silus,” a boy a little younger than Mortuus with a broad, squashed nose. “Broken Tree,” the instructor pointed at a lanky teenager with a pronounced underbite. “Max,” who appeared to be the youngest and cleanest-looking. “Prong,” whose face was swollen with bruises. “Bonjou,” who had a big dumb smile. “Pliny,” who had shifty eyes. “Helo,” who looked to be the oldest, and had ritualistic scars across his face. “Cracked-Glass,” who appeared to be so named for a pair of dusty glasses he wore. He raised his eyebrows in surprise at Mortuus. “Mosayru,” who sneered at Mortuus. “Nuvakwahu,” who looked exactly like Mosayru but with shorter hair. He didn't sneer but sullenly stared. “Victor,” who had some tribal tattoos on his arms that Mortuus almost recognized. “Ravid,” who had the same tattoos as Victor. “Ya-et-ehh,” who looked huge, at least six feet tall and barely into his teens. The instructor made sure Mortuus repeated each name after it was told to him. He stumbled over some of the pronunciation, but he phonetically sounded them out in his mouth.  
“Alright, and I'm sir. You call me sir,” the drill instructor pointed at himself.  
“Youcall-me-sir,” Mortuus repeated. Sir smacked him upside the head.  
“What a fucking moron,” he muttered. Mortuus nursed his head sullenly. “Alright, maggots, march!”  
The thirteen boys all lined up in a row and Mortuus awkwardly joined them, still sullen from the slap. The thirteen marched. They left the barracks into the cooling badlands evening. They left the camp at a steady pace, past armed guards standing watch next to fences built of hard wasteland clay and more rusty scrap tin.  
Mortuus trailed slightly behind the rest. He didn't want to march any more after being marched to Kingman. The boy named Bonjou looked back at him pityingly.  
“Pa tonbe dèyè, ou pral jwenn manje,” he told Mortuus, but he was savagely smacked by Victor.  
“Speak english you fucking cabron,” Victor sneered. Mortuus couldn't understand either of them. He was embarrassed by his ignorance, and was so scared to speak he resolved to never speak again.  
They marched for hours. Every time Mortuus thought they were going to stop, turn around, and go home, they kept marching. It was around midnight when they finally returned to camp, lit by torches made of oil-soaked rags and old lead pipes. They sullenly tromped to the barracks where Sir dismissed them. Mortuus didn't understand what was happening but he dutifully followed his new comrades. He'd made the trip to Kingman and then made it again and again and again until he could almost tell that they were just walking in circles. He thought he had worked more than any of the other boys he was sharing a now-frozen barracks with. He had definitely worked harder than he'd ever worked before. Yet he still survived. He was tough. He crawled under an old tarp on an old mattress and fell asleep immediately.  
He felt like he woke up immediately. At five in the morning all the boys were putting on their armor and stretching for the day. Mortuus had never been awake before the sun before. His status among the Twisted Hairs afforded him that privilege. He sorely missed it as he clumsily forced on his armor. As the boys all readied themselves a bottle of water was passed around and they all drank from it. Mortuus was the last to receive the water and he drank from it as he had seen the other boys do, but it tasted like the spit of thirteen other boys. In any case it did make him feel better.  
They ate a breakfast of flavorful mush, thick and creamy like polenta. Although it reminded him of mud he ate lots of it because he was so depleted from the day before. He was allowed to eat as much as he wanted. Among the Twisted Hairs, who otherwise had given him much, there was not enough food for him to eat his fill, yet among the Legion (who as far as he could tell didn't actually like him) he was given all the meal he could cram in his mouth. He ate more than any other boy, but not much more.  
He discovered quickly that the daily training routine was more intensive than the trip to Kingman and some laps around town. They began training immediately after breakfast, more laps around town, and when it seemed like they were about to stop, Sir instead gave each of them heavy rocks and made them run around town even more. Then with shaking arms Mortuus was made to do pull ups and push ups before a lunch of more mush. Mortuus' arms were too weak for him to eat, but he was starving so he forced his face into the mush and licked his bowl clean. The other boys suffered no such exhaustion. They were jovial, laughing and talking to each other as they shoveled food into their mouths. They ignored Mortuus. Many years later when Mortuus Anima thought back to his first official day with the Legion he was embarrassed by his behavior, but none of the other boys cared.  
After lunch was sparring. Mortuus was handed a stick and paired up with Max, who was smaller than Mortuus but was actually older. Max came from a small township in Arizona that had capitulated to the Legion peacefully, seeing Caesar and his soldiers as a source of order in the chaotic wasteland. Many of the men in Max's family had joined the Legion proudly, and Max's mother sent him to train with the Legion because she felt it was the right thing to do. Max loved the Legion. However, he was not a good soldier.  
Sir set up Mortuus with Max to make a point. Any of the boys could have defeated Mortuus handily, but losing to Max was the most embarrassing. Mortuus Anima could tell what Sir was trying to do and was determined to beat Max into the ground.  
When sparring began Mortuus wound up for a massive blow to Max's small frame, the same blow he'd used to fell his first kill. It was clearly telegraphed and Max calmly jabbed him in his totally exposed stomach. As Mortuus doubled over in pain Max brought his stick hard across Mortuus' face, a blow that if it came from any other boy would have laid Mortuus out flat but Max had to trip him to get him to fall. Then Max, unaccustomed as he was to beating his opponent in a sparring match, began to gracelessly beat Mortuus with his stick while Mortuus lay on the ground futilely trying to protect himself with his hands. Sir called it off after a minute and a half of this.  
“Now you see, Mortuus Anima,” Sir stood over him, “Even the weakest Legionary can defeat the strongest tribal.”  
Mortuus didn't understand a thing Sir said, but the message was perfectly clear.


	49. The Little Prince

The Little Prince  
Aram Hurt was the chosen son of the Twisted Hairs until his death. He was big and strong and his family was tribal royalty, but he was undisciplined and given to bravado. His father tried to beat some humility into him, but he was too reckless. He picked fights constantly, often fighting six or seven men at a time. He smiled when he fought. One time it lost him his two front teeth. He kept fighting.  
Mortuus Anima was trained for four years in Kingman. In those early days of the Legion it was customary for a boy to be trained until the age of sixteen, but no one knew how old Mortuus was when he was brought to the fort and he grew so fast and so large he looked sixteen. In accordance with his promise to himself, he refused to talk even when he finally picked up English. He could've told them he wasn't old enough, but he was too proud to speak up.  
Until his first big growth spurt his fighting lacked technique and more often than not he lingered behind on marches. He was seen as soft, and quickly earned the nickname “The Little Prince,” because of his obliviously entitled attitude and his symbolic recruitment into the Legion. Everyone in Kingman knew he was the chosen son of the Twisted Hairs and the other boys harbored class resentment against his perceived nobility. Even if his life before the Legion wasn't that different from the other boys (or, in Max's case, objectively worse), he was “The Little Prince” and he had grown up fanned by slaves and idly eating ripe mutfruit, according to his peers. He was unaware of his reputation. Really the only thing that separated him from the other boys was confidence, but that meant little when Ya-et-ehh could send him flying with a single backhand.  
At the age of eleven he grew a foot and a half. It was practically overnight. At least amongst the smaller boys his lack of finesse no longer mattered. He had the drive and he had the muscle, and he could take on three boys at once. He broke Silus' arm and smiled the whole time. He still wasn't able to truly match the older boys who had more technique, like Victor or Nuvakwahu, and Ya-et-ehh could still beat him handily as Ya had the size and the technique.  
Once he started winning fights the other boys began to accept Mortuus. Typically the boys who tried to make friends with him were boys he could beat handily, excepting the boys who came from tribes that fought with the Twisted Hairs. For instance, Max, the scion of civilization who was only aware of the wasteland and its tribes as distant abstractions that existed outside the walls of his small town followed Mortuus like a shadow. In contrast, Victor came from a nearby tribe that had a longstanding rivalry with the Twisted Hairs. He had lost family to Twisted Hair blades, and he relished every opportunity to fight “The Little Prince” he was given, even though he and Mortuus were on roughly equal footing. Eventually when Mortuus was twelve he was notable larger than the thirteen-year-old Victor, but their rivalry continued in earnest.  
Cracked-Glass was small and he wasn't a good fighter. He was more timid than the other boys, and it was obvious he wasn't cut out to be a legionary. He could see alright without his glasses, not great but not as bad as he made the others believe. He didn't want Sir or the other boys to know how well he could see because he needed his glasses to feel safe. His entire fighting style was developed around protecting his glasses because he wasn't willing to spar without them. Sir hated him.  
He was also from a tribe that had a bad relationship with the Twisted Hairs. The tribe were known as the Dibe among other tribes but they called themselves the Blessed. They mostly raised bighorners in the wasteland and occupied an area to the south of Mortuus' former tribe, but didn't have a fixed location as they moved from graze-land to graze-land. They were peaceful and made good trade with other tribals- except the Twisted Hairs, who had massacred more than half the Blessed about sixty years before Cracked-Glass was born.  
Mortuus didn't know Cracked-Glass was once one of the Blessed. He wasn't even aware there was a more than seventy-year-old grudge between the Blessed and the Twisted Hairs. Cracked-Glass certainly didn't act like he'd been raised to blindly hate Mortuus and his former tribe. If anything he seemed more desperate to be on Mortuus' good side than Max. Two years into his training and still no one knew whether Mortuus Anima understood English but Cracked-Glass talked to him all the same. The other boys who were more aware of the politics of the local tribes thought it was odd, but Mosayru was particularly relieved that Cracked-Glass' attentions were elsewhere. Before the boy started bothering The Little Prince he was always chattering mindlessly at Mosayru. Mortuus didn't seem to mind, and in truth he didn't. After awhile he was surprised at how intently he listened to the boy, how much he enjoyed the companionship of this strange fellow recruit with the cracked glasses.  
One day while the boys were sparring (Broken Tree and Helo had already graduated to real Legionaries, but they had been replaced by three boys from Kingman who Mortuus could beat handily and thus didn't really care about), Max managed to knock the glasses off of Cracked-Glass' face. While the other boys were congratulating Max, Mortuus knocked Silus to the ground and walked over to pick up the glasses and hand them back. The other boys were shocked. Even Sir couldn't believe it. It was the nicest thing any of them had ever seen Mortuus do. To him it meant nothing. It didn't occur to him that his silence was intimidating, or that for all the time Cracked-Glass spent with him no one (least of all Cracked-Glass himself) thought Mortuus actually liked him or his company. When the three boys from Kingman joined the fort they were warned explicitly that The Little Prince was dangerous, and that he hated everybody. Already he was becoming legend, a monster to be feared. But he was just a twelve year old boy, quieter than most and stronger than most but ultimately not very different from the other boys he trained with.  
A great pressure was released with that one simple act of kindness. Suddenly all the boys wanted to be Mortuus' friend, except Victor and Pliny and Ravid, although they did soften to him. Cracked-Glass suddenly found himself in a privileged position as the only acknowledged friend of The Little Prince, and almost all the boys vied to replace him. Mortuus himself had grown so accustomed to being popular in his ten years amongst the Twisted Hairs that he hadn't even noticed that he hadn't been for more than two years, and acted like nothing had changed. It became a game to see who could get Mortuus to smile, but the only time he ever seemed happy was when he was fighting.  
“You should focus on his left arm,” Cracked-Glass told Mortuus one day after sparring. Mortuus listened intently. He'd just been beaten by Nuvakwahu, who had recently grown a foot and was no longer the same size as Mortuus. “When he arrived at camp, he had his arm in a sling. I think it's been broken before,” Cracked-Glass explained.  
Mortuus nodded his head intently, one of the rare gestures he made when someone spoke to him. The next time he fought Nuvakwahu he focused on the boy's left arm. Nuvakwahu, who typically fought with cunning and rivaled Mortuus in brutality suddenly fought timidly and on the defense. Mortuus beat him easily.  
It wasn't so surprising that Mortuus could beat someone bigger than him. The biggest revelation was that Cracked-Glass was good for anything at all. Sir and the other boys had long since given up on him, and Mortuus was the only one who acknowledged him, albeit in his own reserved way. Through Mortuus, Cracked-Glass had found his place amongst his peers and within the Legion. A greater sense of camaraderie grew not just between Mortuus Anima and Cracked-Glass, but between all the boys being trained in Kingston. They all grew strong as they no longer sought dominance, but worked together. Even Max developed into a warrior in his own right through the support and friendship of everyone, including Mortuus. Old tribal animosities faded away, became forgotten relics of lives that the boys no longer cared about. They were unified under the Legion and they were much stronger for it.  
One day Victor was scarring Mortuus' arm during some down time. Cracked-Glass questioned Victor and Ravid about the beautiful scars on their arms, and although they explained their old tribe decorated their warriors with delicate and elaborate scarring as a significant rite of passage, they were hardly important now that they were part of the Legion. They offered to provide similar scars to any boy who was interested and Mortuus expressed an interest.  
“Oh, uh, I was cleaning the barracks the other day, and I found some weird, knotted up hair under your bunk. It looked unhygienic, so I threw it in the fire. Hope that's okay,” Victor mentioned casually. Mortuus shrugged with his other arm. He didn't really care. The dreadlock he'd saved when he arrived in Kingman didn't mean anything to him any more. He could barely remember why he kept it in the first place. He was a Legionary now.


	50. Heart & Soul Part IV

Heart & Soul Part IV  
Aram Hurt died three days before the birth of his daughter. He died during a raid. The other young men (boys really) he was with were retreating with a good supply of stolen goods. He told them to run and he would cover them. Alone. They were being beset by seven anasazi tribesmen. Hurt defended his comrades not heroically, but vaingloriously. He wanted to fight these enemies. He wanted to prove he was better, he was stronger. His companions left quickly. Hurt stayed.  
He killed one of the men that fought him, and held off the rest, but soon more came. He went from fighting six men to fighting ten. Then thirteen. The young men he raided with were safe. They could still see him. They called to him, told him it was over, begged him to retreat. Hurt stayed. He kept fighting, but soon he was fighting the entire rallied defenses of the anasazi. The other young men could only watch as his smile finally faded, as he was cut down by two dozen anasazi warriors. They couldn't even recover the body.  
Aram Harpy later told the story to Hurt's son, who was only a year old when his father died. In retelling the story, Harpy altered it, leaving out the details that painted Hurt in a bad light. That there was no need to keep fighting. That Hurt died because he was arrogant and proud. That he died for glory, not for his tribe. Harpy didn't want Hurt's son to have a bad impression of his father.  
Mortuus Anima became a full Legionary with four other boys. He fought Mosayru as part of his induction ritual, and Victor fought Nuvakwahu. Sir didn't want the twins fighting each other. Mortuus and Nuvakwahu ended up in Cato the Bludy's centuriae, and Victor and Mosayru ended up in Maximus and Sergio's centuriaes, respectively. The Legion fort in Kingman had only a half cohort, as it was a low risk, low-yield area. Save the old Route 66 Museum that was used as a place of spiritual significance by local tribes the ruins were mostly used as a route to more important targets, like Lake Havasu or the relatively verdant Hualapai.  
It was also the Legion outpost closest to Dry Wells. Although in the four years since he'd been traded to the Legion Mortuus had ceased to be a Twisted Hair, he still felt some pull to return to his original people. Most pressingly (although he'd never admit it, not at the age of fourteen, anyway) he wanted to see his sister, Arama, again. By that time she was thirteen years old, the age at which most Twisted Hair girls were married, although Mortuus remembered that Arama was barred from marriage by their grandfather and the elders. He always thought that was unfair. Although he loved his grandfather, sometimes he felt that the revered elder liked to pick on Arama. It was not her fault that she was so rebellious.  
Mortuus had an obligation to the Legion, though, one he was not willing to sacrifice to see his sister or grandfather. In any case he had more than enough to occupy him as a new Legionary. Although Sir held Mortuus and his peers to a strict disciplinary standard, the Centurions of Kingman turned out to be much less stern. Kingman's obscurity and unimportance bred corruption and indolence. The other Legionaries were shiftless, and spent much of their time lounging or fucking slaves. Gladiatorial fights were staged daily, mostly Legionaries or captured beasts killing ill-prepared wastelanders. The rules prohibiting chems and drink were still followed; any of Caesar's other rules were ignored when convenient.  
The centurions of Kingman were making lots of money in slave trade. Rather than following Caesar's orders they sent their contubernias out to capture slaves from local tribes and then sold them to whoever could pay. They were growing quite rich from their illicit dealings. Most of their buyers were even other Centurions, all arranged through third parties. Some of the buyers were only interested in meat.  
To assure the loyalty of their contubernias, centurions Cato the Bludy, Maximus, and Sergio paid for supplies above and beyond the typical Legion camp. Mortuus and his friends quickly realized Kingman was the best place in the Legion to be stationed. Sir disapproved, but he had very little authority outside the trainees.  
Mortuus Anima loved nothing more than fighting, and so he quickly developed a reputation in the camp as a legendary bare-knuckle brawler. The Legionaries even challenged the tribes of Kingman to pit their strongest warriors against Mortuus. Although the tribes liked the slave trade that the Legion camp cultivated, they didn't have much respect for the thuggish, corrupt Legionaries stationed there. The dominant tribe of Kingman, known as The Devines, were unimpressed with the brash young man who the Legionaries called champion, and they accepted the challenge. They sent their biggest, strongest warrior to face Mortuus in single combat. He was unsettled that Mortuus wanted to fight bare-knuckle, but was confident in his victory all the same.  
They entered the arena from opposite sides, walked up to each other with their fists raised. Mortuus employed some fleet footwork, and they traded blows. They seemed evenly matched, but the younger man let off a few hits directly into the Devine warrior's face that gave the warrior pause. Mortuus for his part was already starting to get a little punch-drunk when he turned the tide of the fight, but once it was over it was over. There was no mercy in the Legion's arena, and there was no mercy given by Mortuus Anima, the dead soul. The big Devine fell to his knees, and Mortuus gleefully snapped his neck. The legionaries celebrated in joyful uproar, but the Devines were silent. They wouldn't forget the fight, or the young man who won it.  
The corruption in Kingman didn't last. The Centurions got away with their scheme for a little bit longer than a year and a half. It started immediately after Caesar's priestesses of Mars left and ended only a year after Mortuus was made a Legionary. That was when Caesar came.  
The Centurions anticipated this. They knew that the Son of Mars would make his way to Kingman eventually. They anticipated that he would make an appearance while passing through, to lead the war against the tribes of Hualapai. They assumed it would be relatively easy to hide their illicit activities, and made a plan. It didn't matter, though. Caesar had known for months.  
Frumentarius infiltrated the Kingman slavery ring as one of their very first assignments. They worked to keep the business confined to the Legion, to make sure news of the disobedient Centurions didn't spread to the wasteland. They kept Caesar informed, waiting for him to settle the matter personally.  
Caesar came with two full cohorts. It took a whole day just for the men to arrive. They came with hundreds of slaves. Mortuus had never seen so many people gathered at one time. The Legion camp couldn't contain them all, and so only Caesar's personal cohort stayed within the confines of the old campground while all the other Legionaries made temporary lodging around the fort. The three centuriae stationed at Kingman ended up surrounded on all sides by legionaries brought by Caesar, but they thought nothing of it.  
Mortuus was impressed by the other legionaries. Other centuriae came through Kingman regularly, but none were like the men who fought directly under Caesar. These men had been fighting and winning battles in eastern Arizona for years. Big, strong veterans with intimidating battle scars and discipline that even put Sir to shame. They trained constantly. Many of the Kingman legionaries didn't bother to keep up with these soldiers, but Mortuus felt compelled to join them in their routines.  
In the morning they ran all around Kingman in tight regiments. Mortuus couldn't get any of his contubernia to join him, so he ran behind or beside the other Legionaries until a contubernia offered to let him join them. He was clearly outmatched, and the only legionary to start breathing hard, but they treated him as though he were their own. He spent whole days with them, training and sparring and maintaining equipment. The decanus, a burly man with only one eye named Kratos, taught him how to sew. During meals the men fondly recalled the battles they'd fought, and Mortuus bashfully admitted (speaking softly; he'd begun to talk but only barely) that he hadn't seen any real battles since joining the Legion. The men assured him he'd see battle soon enough.  
Caesar made camp in Kingman for a week before he took action. He gathered all the centurions in Kingman together in the tent where the priestesses had shaved Mortuus' head. It started like any other war meeting, but before the Kingman centurions could react they were grabbed by the others and held. Caesar then calmly explained that he knew all about their insubordination, and that there was nothing they could do to save their lives, but if they wanted to save the lives of their men they could confess who was and who wasn't part of the slavery ring. Cato the Bludy claimed his whole centuriae was behind him and would fight to the death, but Sergio and Maximus rolled over on centurions they knew had bought from them and claimed full responsibility for their men's actions. It didn't matter what they said, though, because Caesar already knew everything.  
The Kingman centuriaes had no idea what was happening. The other centuriaes received the order to capture the Kingman legionaries while Mortuus was with them. They didn't even think to hold him until he sheepishly admitted he was under the command of Cato the Bludy. Even still, they hesitated, as Mortuus had become quite popular in just a week, but Mortuus offered his hands to be tied and they obliged.  
Out of the two-hundred and forty men stationed in Kingman, one-hundred and twenty-five were executed. Most were crucified, their bodies lining the sides of route 66. They were mostly decanus who were aware of the plot and had received money from the centurions. Sir was executed quickly, his throat slit rather than the long painful death by exposure on a telephone pole. Nuvakwahu was crucified simply for being under Cato the Bludy's command and his twin brother could only watch. All the boys who had trained with Mortuus but had graduated earlier such as Helo and Ya-et-ehh were likewise crucified. Mortuus' decanus had his legs and arms broken before he was nailed to his telephone pole.  
The worst punishments were reserved for the centurions. All three were whipped for hours. They had their fingers cut off one by one, and were castrated. Sergio, the man in the metal armor that Mortuus had seen on his first day in Kingman, was stripped bare and pressed to death under rocks. Maximus was also stripped but was hanged. At first he tried to die with dignity, but soon began flailing and clawing at the rope, slowly asphyxiating. His body thrashed in the open air naked and afraid, and then was still. Cato the Bludy, who earned the most scorn from Caesar, was killed last. He was dumped unceremoniously and naked into the arena. Legion mongrels were set upon him, tearing him limb from limb. He couldn't scream, because his tongue had been cut out, but he made the effort anyway. The noise he made was strangled by the blood that filled his throat.  
Those spared by Caesar's wrath were not absolved of guilt. Although Mortuus was spared execution, he and the one-hundred and fifteen men left were placed directly under Caesar's command. This was all part of his plan. Kingman was a demonstration, a warning to other centurions about the Son of Mars' absolute authority, but it was meant for the Legion only. Caesar had decided to conquer Kingman, lest the local tribes spread word of dissension in his Legion's ranks. He needed some of the legionaries alive because they were part of his attack plan. The survivors of his punishment were to fight the Devines in south Kingman, to prevent them from traveling up route 66 and providing aid to the other tribes fighting Caesar's cohorts. He knew the Devines hated the Kingman Legionaries, enough to be distracted by fighting them.  
Mortuus and the other Legionaries marched down to the ancient Route 66 museum before the attack began. They were grim. No one said a word. They knew they were marching to their deaths, but they didn't dare rebel. Nothing the Devines did to them could compare to what Caesar would do if they didn't follow his orders to the letter. They were stopped before they made it to the museum. Because it was sacred lands, a small guard comprised of members of each local tribe kept watch. A warrior from the Kin Haalʼá Naaldeehiis held his arm out to prevent them from going any further and Mortuus broke it. All hell broke loose and a rifle retort missed Mortuus just barely, striking the Legionary beside him in the chest.  
They never made it to the museum, and they lost ground rapidly. The Devines had been watching route 66 and knew what was coming when they saw the legionaries march in a long column. They'd mustered a decent defense in a short amount of time, and the legionaries were already demoralized. The Devines had rifles at first, but none of the guns had been tested in real combat and so broke and ran out of ammo quickly. Once the rifles were out of the picture the legionaries held their ground much better. Two hours into the battle their numbers were reduced to a single centuriae, but they kept their numbers for another six hours after that.  
The legionaries held their ranks while the Devines would gather at a safe perimeter, suddenly swarm and then quickly retreat. The legionaries were better equipped and better trained, but they were fighting a losing battle. The Devines were taking out a few legionaries at a time, but consistently and while their numbers grew. When the night came it got worse. The legionaries had torches, but the light only extended so far, and soon they couldn't tell where the Devines were coming from. By the early hours of the morning, the legionaries were only twenty strong. To make matters worse they'd been fighting all day and all night and were exhausted, while the Devines had been sleeping in shifts and were keeping up their strength. When the men were only eight, the time had come to retreat, if only to warn the other Legionaries that the Devines would soon be coming.  
Mortuus Anima stayed behind, to cover the retreat. Two other men stayed by him, and the other five left for north Kingman. Mortuus was certain this would be his last stand, and he intended to die with dignity. He wielded ten feet of flagpole, the end sharpened to a point. The Devines rushed them head-on, and the men with Mortuus took a few out with throwing spears. Mortuus waited until they were within range and swung the pole with all his considerable might, screaming a battle cry. He smashed a warrior's face in, gashed three across the chest, and knocked three more to the ground, their allies tripping over them. He kept them at a distance for one more swing but then they were upon him. He couldn't see his allies. He dropped the pole and started to fight with just his fists. He struck out in all directions, took blows from all sides, but he didn't go down. He fought so ferociously he actually succeeded in forcing a retreat. His allies were dead. The Devines were circling him, recognizing him. They knew he was the man who had killed their strongest warrior. He would've been dead were it not for some quick thinking and a stroke of luck.  
He took a hostage. A Devine on the ground near him was wounded but not dead, and Mortuus grabbed him and pulled out a switchblade. He held it close to the Devine's throat, and that held off another rush.  
The Devines responded in kind. They'd captured a few men of the one-hundred and fifteen, and they brought them before Mortuus now. Mosayru was among them. They killed one of the men as a demonstration. Mortuus retaliated by cutting his hostage's face.  
“C'mon!” he yelled, not knowing whether they understood him or not, “A legionary is proud to die for Caesar! Gloria Mars!”  
That seemed to scare the Devines. In that moment they realized the animal fury contained within the legionary they'd cornered. They saw the power of the Twisted Hairs and the might of the Legion in one. It was terrifying to behold.  
“How many more of your men will die by my hands?” He hoarsely snarled.  
They killed the captured legionaries one by one. Mosayru was last. He died proud, looking Mortuus right in the eyes as they slit his throat. Mortuus bit back tears and executed his hostage, but found another in the first Devine to rush him. Slowly, he marched further into south Kingman, a ring of Devines watching his every move, waiting for him to slip up. He replaced his switchblade with a machete, and drew blood from any warrior foolish enough to try and get close. For an hour this went on, Mortuus taunting the Devines and the Devines growing more and more agitated. Eventually they rushed him despite his captive.  
He killed the hostage immediately and fought with everything he had left. He wasn't fighting for glory. He wasn't fighting to prove he could. He was fighting to survive, and he was fighting on the orders of Caesar. He cut Devine warriors one after another, keeping them back just enough to take them on one at a time. He was brought down by a spear to the gut. A Devine got close to deliver the killing blow, and with his last bit of strength Mortuus headbutted him, forcing the Devine's nose back up into his brain and killing him instantly. Mortuus sat there on his knees, spear still in his stomach, waiting for a Devine to come up behind him and slit his throat. He embraced it. It was a good death. But it didn't come.  
Instead, marching up 66 in a long column was the rest of the Legion. The Devines retreated in terror. Mortuus was fifteen years and seven months old. In a month, he'd be older than his father ever was.


	51. Heart & Soul Part V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: homoeroticism

Heart and Soul part V  
Mortuus recovered quickly from his wounds following the battle for Kingman. He couldn't remember anything that happened after the rest of the Legion arrived. He woke up in a brahmin-skin tent on a hard cot with bandages all over his body. It was nearly a month after the battle. He didn't know it but he'd spent most of that time in a desperate struggle for life, attended by three slaves for hours on end. Although he received no special commendation for his actions, he had made the Legion proud. Caesar wasn't going to let a warrior as strong as him go to waste.  
The surviving members of the contubernia he'd trained with the week before the battle came to visit him as soon as he was well enough to receive visitors. Kratos slapped him on the back, which caused an incredible amount of pain but he swallowed it and smiled. He really was happy to see friendly faces, as everyone he'd known (give or take a few slaves) for the past five years was dead. He could smell their corpses rotting in the wasteland sun, all along old Route 66.  
“You've got a lot of slave fucking to catch up on!” Kratos joked, “You missed all the celebrating!”  
The Legion had taken Kingman. It was a three day battle. The Devines were the last to fall. Legion casualties were minimal, the greatest loss being the one-hundred and ten 'traitors,' who Caesar never intended to let live anyway. All the tribes of Kingman were either dead or enslaved. When Mortuus awoke the slaves were still being processed, the strong forced to pledge loyalty to Caesar and the weak broken into docile animals. The Legion had expanded their encampment to occupy all of Kingman. They destroyed the Route 66 Museum. Tore it apart and set it on fire. Afterwards, some of the local tribes surrounding Kingman capitulated, but there were still some who resisted the Legion, and there were skirmishes on the outskirts of town daily.  
“You had a hole in your middle so big I could put my fist in it,” Reave exaggerated Mortuus' wound, but only just. It would've killed him if he were an older man. As it was the worst it'd do was leave a scar.  
Reave was a ropey young man, only two years older than Mortuus. He was true Legion, a boy born to the Blackfoot tribe just before they were reformed by Caesar. Unbeknownst to the rest of the wasteland, however, the Blackfoot tribe had traditions they kept from Caesar, that were traded away in favor of his new order. Reave was inheritor to these traditions and he didn't even know it.  
He was different. When the Legion expanded beyond the confines of a single tribe, others would call the young boy 'unsettling.' He knew things he couldn't. Saw truths that others didn't see. There had been at least one person like him in every generation of the Blackfoot tribe. They used to be cast out, banished to the wastes, but over the generations came to be viewed as shaman and mystics. They developed an elaborate and arcane culture that Reave was not privilege to. By the time his other-ness developed the tribe had been reorganized into Caesar's Legion and had little use for shaman and mystics, although Caesar did retain the use of the Blackfoot's spiritual leader to be his first Priestess of Mars. She couldn't reach Reave to tell him he was part of Blackfoot tradition.  
His other-ness manifested itself all the same. The boys he trained with noticed it, as did the adults who trained him. He quickly gained a bad reputation for being a little too insightful, a little too observant. His inquisitive eyes were intimidating. He'd be quiet, uncomfortably quiet, until out of the blue he'd say something like, “He's hiding something,” or, “They know something.” Occasionally he seemed to know what was going to happen, like when he shielded himself from Tom Quell's exploding rifle and the other boys around all got torn up by the bits. That was how Kratos lost his eye, but Reave ducked out of the way just a little too fast, a little too aware of what was coming for it to simply be intuition.  
His contubernia served with him for so long and knew him so well they let it go. They chalked up all the strange behavior to “Reave being Reave.” Sometimes it even came in handy, like when he gave them the extra split-second warning that they were about to be ambushed by raiders. Kratos eventually came to trust Reave's hunches, even relied on them. Other contubernias might talk now and again about Reave and his strange, unsettling behavior, but among his own he was accepted and respected.  
He was the one who invited Mortuus to train with the contubernia. The two young men had an instant connection, behaving as though they had known each other for years. They didn't even have to talk, they were so attuned to each other. They had their own secret language comprised of meaningful glances and smart gestures. It was as though they were brothers, despite looking totally opposite.  
When the time came to return Mortuus to be sentenced with the rest of the Kingman Legionaries, Reave was the one to do it. None of the other men would dare. He also personally accompanied Mortuus, weak from battle, back to the fort when the Legion found him fending off an entire tribe.  
Once he was awake it was only a few days until Mortuus was on his feet and training with Kratos' contubernia again. He was happy to be back in action. The time he'd spent in bed had atrophied his muscles, yet he was eager for the opportunity to rebuild his strength. Mortuus lived for the physical, fought to tame it and subject it to his will. For men like Reave, there seemed to be a limit to their physical prowess, but Mortuus had yet to find his, despite thorough searching. A month out of bed and he was larger than Kratos, who was not a small man. He continued to eat as much as he could, and as a bona-fide hero of the Legion he was allowed to eat a lot. With help from Reave he became a better fighter, too.  
“Watch your opponent. They'll tell you everything you need to know,” Reave told Mortuus as they sparred. In a way it was a continuation of Cracked-Glass' tutelage, although Reave couldn't possibly know that. Cracked-Glass, although he hadn't been made a legionary yet, had been killed along with most of the Kingman legionaries. As a child, he'd been killed quick, but he'd been killed all the same.  
“Watch their eyes, watch their body. They'll let you know what they're going to do before they do it, and they'll let you know what you should do, too. You just need to know what to look for,” Reave shifted fighting positions, mutated his stance again and again to demonstrate a variety of weaknesses and possible attacks. Mortuus picked up on some, to his surprise, but he was more impressed with the way Reave could imitate the styles of so many warriors so fast.  
“See, someone who holds his arms like this is going to try to grab you,” Reave demonstrated, “but they're favoring their right hand. Take out the right hand,” Mortuus struck fast to lock Reave's hand, “and they'll fall like that,” Reave smiled and snapped his free fingers.  
“How do you do that?” asked Mortuus when he let Reave go.  
“Trust me, when you've seen as much battle as me, you'll be able to do it too,” Reave drank deeply from his canteen, “Besides, these are just demonstrations. Probably anybody you fight will be totally different. Hopefully you'll be able to catch them as fast as you caught me,” he handed the canteen to Mortuus, who drank deep.  
“When I fought, I didn't think about them. I just thought about me,” Mortuus said after pausing for a moment. He watched the ground and thought about fighting the Devines.  
“Most battles aren't like that,” Reave said, “Caesar doesn't usually throw men away like that.”  
Reave looked down at the same spot Mortuus was focused on. Mortuus was worried that he could never be as good a warrior as Reave. Reave was worried because he knew he'd just lied to his best friend.  
In general, though, Mortuus Anima's life was great. He felt free, in a way he hadn't for a long time. He'd accomplished something, he'd made a difference, and it affected his whole outlook. He stuck to the same routine as the other men, but it felt like a choice. He wasn't part of the Legion because he'd been sold as part of a political deal. He was part of the Legion because he wanted to be part of the Legion. There was no more Sir to order him around. He was Legion through and through.


	52. Animals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WOAH HEY CONTENT WARNING LIKE RIGHT AWAY SOME RAPE OKAY? Please be warned

Animals  
“Animals,” Decanus Kratos sneered, “Gotta show them their place.”  
He held the slave by her hair, thrusting into her from behind. She was on her hands and knees, totally numb. It appeared to Mortuus Anima that this animal knew her place quite well. Kratos continued to talk about the finer points of breaking animals anyway.  
“Y'see, they're all the same,” Kratos was clearly enjoying himself, “They act like they don't want it... ugh... ahhhh but they want it,” his voice cracked like a Colorado River toad.  
Mortuus was well versed with fucking slaves, and didn't need a lecture. He'd come across Kratos accidentally while walking back to the new barracks established outside the fort. He'd been waiting two weeks for a new contubernia assignment, seeing as his last contubernia and almost all the legionaries he'd known for nearly six years were dead.  
“Y'see,” Kratos continued, “they're all ruled- hurgh- they're all ruled by... animal impulses, see. Yeah, yeah, see... they can't, they don't think about things like you or me. See... we are higher, uh, functioning beings, who know stuff like battle.... and... and law.”  
He shifted his weight and began making hard, slow thrusts. He grunted a little with each thrust, but the slave didn't react at all. On the ground near her was a metal trunk that she'd been carrying when she was stopped by Kratos. Mortuus didn't know if he'd let her set it down or made her drop it. He assumed Kratos made her drop it.  
“See, but they can't handle that stuff. They're for breeding,” Kratos said, “just brahmin by a different name, Mortuus. Animals.”  
Mortuus picked the metal trunk up and balanced it on his shoulder with one hand. He knew where it was going, as he'd seen slaves carry trunks just like it the past couple of weeks. There was a lot of activity in Kingman as the ruins were transformed into a Legion stronghold. It was interesting to Mortuus, as he watched old decaying buildings be transformed into towers three stories tall. Builders (slaves) mostly used adobe and mud brick, but sometimes they used hard concrete to make foundations and walls. Mortuus had never seen concrete made after the war, and it made him very excited. Here was something to believe in. Here, more than he'd ever seen before, was clear and visible progress. Just two months into his rule of Kingman Caesar transformed it from a crumbling ruin to a real city. Mortuus heard Flagstaff was even more amazing.  
All of the slaves building the city anew were imported; none of the slaves who'd been captured in Kingman were still within Kingman. They'd all been shipped out to other parts of Caesar's empire. Mortuus didn't know where the new slaves came from, but it was easy to tell that they weren't native to the area because they didn't look like anyone he'd ever known. The slave Kratos was fucking had pale skin, sickly and ashen, and she had a sharp, small nose that made her face look broad in contrast. At first when the new slaves arrived it made Mortuus uncomfortable to be surrounded by so many unfamiliar faces, but in time they faded into the background (like the old slaves) and he stopped noticing them entirely. The only natives still in Kingman were the ghosts left behind.  
Kratos pushed her face into the ground and continued fucking the slave. It didn't look like he had any intention of stopping, so Mortuus carried the slave's cargo all the way to the build site. As he walked away he could hear the soft grunts Kratos made. The slave never made a sound.  
The build site was teaming with activity. Slaves taken from more than twenty tribes all worked together to construct a fortress out of the ancient campground that comprised the old Legion fort, building the ten-feet high wall up to nearly forty, and replacing the rusted-out trailers and animal hide tents with long rows of barracks and an armory. A few hired workers milled about and gave the slaves orders.  
The new barracks established outside the campground were once the habitat of a Kingman tribe, a hollowed-out motel by Route 66. It was much nicer than the trailers, which had been dragged out of the campground and were now being used as slave quarters. The motel was crowded, though, as the legionaries now living in it outnumbered the tribe that once lived there two-to-one. The legionaries all pressed together and smelled terrible, the mingled scent of sweat and leather and shit and blood. Mortuus started sleeping outside in secret.  
At the build site everyone gave him a wide berth. They knew he was a legionary. They respected the armor, were scared of it. He found a good place to drop the trunk and set it down gently. The air smelled of mud and baking clay, of sweat and metal. Mortuus saw a slave pouring the clay into brick molds and walked up to her.  
“Ave, legionary,” she said, deferential but distracted.  
“That okay?” Mortuus asked, more of a command than a question. He didn't have any respect for the slave, but he respected the construction. Far be it for him to cause problems just so he could be involved.  
“I dunno. What's in it?” the slave asked, then added, “Sir.”  
Mortuus didn't know either. He just shrugged. The slave finished pouring, then wiped her dirty hands on her rags and walked over to the trunk. Mortuus followed. She opened it to discover it was full of bricks of C-4. She gave Mortuus a wry look, and as he looked back at her he realized he loved her.  
Her name was Sarah and she was six years older than Mortuus. She was a former Fredonian, but she'd joined the Kaibabs through marriage to a Kaibab warrior. A year into her marriage the Blackfoots attacked, killing her husband and enslaving her adopted tribe. After that the Legion formed and she'd been forced to follow Caesar's cohorts for years up and down Arizona and New Mexico. She'd given birth twice, both the product of rape and raised far away from her. She was used to being treated like garbage by the legionaries, and knew to always treat them as though they were her betters, but something about the tall young man with the big eyes made her feel calm. She accepted him instead of submitting to him.  
“Well, I don't think Caesar wants us to build with these,” she smiled. Mortuus kissed her deeply on the lips. She was taken aback, not by the forcefulness of the gesture, but by the passion behind it. He kissed her like she hadn't been kissed in a long time. Not wanting and not demanding, but strong and deep. It was a kiss that, in another time and place, she could have rejected but would not want to. That time and that place were long gone, though. She no longer had any say in what happened to her, and hadn't for a long time. She accepted the kiss, even kissed him back. She was forced to, but even still the fantasy that she wasn't lingered there between their lips.  
Mortuus withdrew, and they looked at each other for a moment. There wasn't love in Sarah's eyes- she had lost all love a long time ago- but Mortuus had never known love anyway, and so the complacency in her eyes was enough. They introduced themselves to each other (another formality from a different time and place).  
“Well, Morty, I think we should take this to the armory, then?” she said. When they brought the trunk to the in-progress armory they found a quiet spot and had sex, in a way that was almost like making love.  
To Mortuus she was incredible, an object of sublime beauty and infinite wisdom. To Sarah, he was a child, a very sweet and spoiled child that she cared deeply about. Their relationship was rough at first, because Mortuus had no right to keep a slave to himself and he knew it. Every time he saw another man talk to Sarah he became jealous, scared that she would be taken away from him by another legionary exercising his right to abuse the slaves. He had no right to differentiate his relationship with Sarah from the typical slave-legionary relationship, even though he knew it was different. Mortuus tried to avoid his jealousy by spending all his time with Sarah, so she couldn't be fucked by another legionary while he wasn't looking. That worked for a time, until they both got in trouble for not doing their respective duties.  
That was four months into their relationship. Mortuus was now sixteen years old and even larger. He'd reached six feet and kept getting taller. It was easy to keep others from asking questions about why he was spending so much time with a slave and why he wasn't training or following orders. Even decanus, rough men who had seen hard battles, were wary to talk to him. He was still widely known as the recruit who fought an entire tribe singlehandedly, and that carried weight. What was most intimidating about him, however, was not how strong or how big he was, but rather, the quietly observed fact that he had defied Caesar, and unlike the rest of the Kingman legionaries he was forgiven. It gave him a special invulnerability, but eventually Kratos noticed.  
“What's this, then?” he grabbed Sarah by the arm and tore the two of them apart, “Mortuus Anima ain't in love is he?”  
Mortuus' first instinct was to take a swing at the decanus and he followed through. Kratos just ducked out of the way and laughed, “I'll whip you for that, boy!”  
Sarah did nothing. She'd learned a long time ago to shut down when a decanus grabbed her like that. She limply submitted and mentally retreated, in sharp contrast to Mortuus, who was the angriest he'd been in years.  
“Balls, Mortuus! It's just pussy,” Kratos wasn't angry, even after Mortuus took a swing at him. He understood that young men sometimes lost their heads over pretty women. He'd tried to pre-empt it by lecturing Mortuus, but obviously the lectures hadn't taken. He needed to do more to get Mortuus' head straight.  
“Sorry I got to do this, Mort,” he flipped Sarah around and bent her over, then put his finger inside her, “This is meat, Mortuus. Nothin' but meat.”  
Mortuus had calmed down enough that all he could do was stare like a child being chastised.  
“There's nothing special about it. There are literally hundreds of slaves just like it, all over here, and if you think this one is special,” Kratos said, “It ain't.”  
Kratos threw Sarah to the ground, then unbuckled his belt. He lifted up her slave rags and then lay down on top of her. He continued to talk as he thrust into her mechanically.  
“It ain't nothing to get worked up over,” Kratos said, “It ain't nothing to get in trouble for. It ain't nothin' worth nothin' to get whipped or strung up or left to die for, y'see?” There was an edge to his voice this time, an urgency that hadn't been in his previous lecture. Mortuus had earned certain privileges, but it didn't stop people from talking. Something had to be done about him, and Kratos was happy to have found him first.  
“You need to get your head out of your ass,” Kratos finished, “I know you haven't been assigned to a new contubernia yet, so you're a little solitarius. Just join my contubernia, no one will care, alright? You don't need,” he spit on Sarah, “Her.”  
Sarah was willing to wait until they were both gone before she got up and went back to helping the other slaves at the build site. She didn't even bother pulling her rags back down. She was looking away as Kratos was inside her, staring into the vast emptiness of the badlands. She didn't bother to look back at Mortuus when the decanus was finished. It wasn't shame. She just assumed he would move on, that whatever they had was over. Perhaps in some small way she would have been sad about that.  
Instead, Mortuus Anima didn't leave her. He waited until the decanus left, then went over to her and very gently lowered her rags. Then he gingerly kissed her on the forehead, and helped her up. At first he'd been angry, but watching Kratos fuck Sarah had actually been cathartic. He'd been so terrified of it happening, and now that it had he realized it wasn't so bad. Just because Sarah had been used by another man, it didn't make him care any less for her, and he realized it didn't make her care any less for him. She might be fucked on the capricious whims of his peers, but none of them would stay with her like he would. As they walked through Kingman, he to his barracks and she to hers, they realized that was something. That was enough.


	53. Heart & Soul Part VII

Heart & Soul part VII  
For months Caesar had been stewing. Kingman wasn't important; it wasn't significant. It was a blip on his radar, a tiny stepping stone, almost entirely insignificant to his grand designs.  
“So then why the hell,” he asked his centurions, “are we still here?”  
It was dinner time. Caesar usually only ate with his centurions when he had orders to give. Occasionally he ate with his centurions so he could reward them for good work. Sometimes, he ate with his centurions so he could make it clear how deeply displeased he was.  
“Because the city needs a full garrison before we can leave,” centurion Mandelay said through spoonfuls of soup, “Sir.” He was the senior-most centurion dining with his eminence, and had seen more than a few Caesar temper tantrums- too many to be fazed by them anymore.  
They sat at a long metal table in a brahmin-skin tent that had been erected on the ashes of the Route 66 museum. It was a symbolic decision rather than a tactical one. Despite the garrison being on the opposite side of town, Caesar couldn't help but poetically demonstrate the new world he intended to build on the ruins of the old one. Caesar's cold calculation often gave sway to poetry. That was just the sort of man he was.  
“Well, then where the hell are they? Huh? Why the hell aren't they here already?” Caesar petulantly nagged. “Get me my records-slave,” he bellowed. One of the many slaves tending to him and his officers hurried out of the tent into the cool night air of the badlands. Around the tent was the full praetorian guard. It was always easy to tell where Caesar could be found by the squad of dangerous men that guarded his every minute.  
The slave moved quietly and quickly between the praetorians. She steeled herself against the cold, her thin rags better suited to the blistering heat of the day. The sounds of the dining centurions grew faint and the whistling wind grew louder as she made her way down the road to a building that had been a diner before the war.  
The guards didn't question her as she walked into the ancient building. It was clear she was a slave of the Legion by the way she carried herself, stooped and beaten. The inside of the diner was dimly lit by halogen lamps, and it was here where someone acknowledged her.  
“What do you want?” the Priestess of Mars hissed.  
“Caesar wants the girl,” was all the slave said. A young blonde girl, fresh into puberty, was brought to the slave. Atia had her glasses on, and was prepared to stand before Caesar with any information he might require. She had been co-ordinating troop movements just before the slave arrived, making sure the newly-promoted Aurelius of Phoenix would have plenty of support for his New Mexico campaign, as thanks for the high-quality brahmin meat he'd gifted her.  
Atia and the slave walked in silence back to the meal tent. Unlike the slave, Atia walked proudly, with an arched back and a high step. She thrust her chest out, making her newly-developing breasts all the more prominent. She thought nothing of it, but even as she passed both the guards of the diner noticed.  
The slave quietly informed Atia of Caesar's question, so Atia could have the answer as soon as she was let into the tent, and Caesar wouldn't have to ask it again. They walked past the praetorian guard, Atia composed herself, and they entered.  
“The Kingman cohort will be here in a week,” Atia said when Caesar acknowledged her presence. She was all business, standing alert with her hands folded crisply behind her back. She spoke clearly but instead of looking at Caesar she stared at the empty space in front of her, as she'd done many times before.  
“We've been here six months. Did they not start marching here six months ago?” Caesar sneered at Atia, waving his hand at her in an angry but pleading motion. She continued to stare straight ahead.  
“No sir. The new cohort couldn't leave until they were up to full numbers, which took nearly a month. They left immediately after that and have been traveling here ever since,” she said quickly and dispassionately. This did not make Caesar happy, so she followed up with, “Before you redeveloped the area in the glory of your Legion, it would've taken them more than a year to make the same trip, sir.”  
That calmed Caesar down. In her years as his secretary Atia had learned many tools for placating him, but the best was reminding him of his impact on the wasteland. That was all he really cared about, the ways in which he shaped the world. Atia respected him for it, because he'd done things to earn respect.  
“Well, tell them to march double-time. I can't afford to waste any more time sitting here,” he grumbled.  
“You'll have to send a runner because the radio is out, sir,” Atia said.  
“Fine! I'll send a runner and a contubernia to check on the local radio tower!” Caesar exploded, slamming his fist on the table. Atia jumped, but regained her composure quickly. Caesar dismissed her with a wave of his hand, then gave the orders to Mandelay.  
“If I do say so myself, mighty Caesar, your records-slave is... quite fetching,” Mandelay said through his teeth. The other centurions nodded in agreement. They'd all been staring like hungry wolves at Atia the entire time she was in the tent.  
“Hmm? Fine, fine, maybe if you please me, Mandelay, she can be yours,” Caesar said distractedly, fiddling with the expensive pre-war watch on his wrist. He sighed. He didn't care about his record-slave any more than he cared about any slave. He was too consumed with his grand designs. The time spent in Kingman was growing far too long, when there was still so much of the world to conquer.  
The next day, Mandelay ordered a runner to tell the new Kingman cohort to hurry, and he ordered Decanus Kratos to take his contubernia to the nearest radio tower and see why they weren't getting a signal anymore.  
Kratos and his men were ecstatic at the job. When Kratos told them, they were lounging idly on some old bleachers that presided over a barren expanse, a desolate wasteland that was once a verdant field used for high school football games. Some other legionaries were running around in the dust, playing a facsimile of the game, but Kratos' contubernia were merely watching.  
“C'mon, Pythos, catch the fuckin' ball!” Reave jeered at the players. Everyone was in high spirits, although bored.  
Mortuus had Sarah with him. They were reclining on the bleachers, Sarah resting comfortably on Mortuus. Since unofficially joining the contubernia and resuming training, no one hassled Mortuus about his relationship. They could express what affection they had in the open, and so during downtime he'd get her from the build site and they'd do whatever he felt like doing. They'd started sleeping together at night, outside the motel barracks in a small area Mortuus made comfortable. Sarah did not ever speak to Mortuus' peers, not that anyone noticed. The other legionaries treated her more like Mortuus' accessory, a pretty bauble he liked to have on his person.  
“Orders from the boss,” Kratos informed his contubernia, “You're all to get your gear on and ready and assemble outside the fort.”  
“Awesome,” legionary Otho couldn't help saying.  
“A job? What kind? Are we gonna get to break some slaves?” Water-Axe asked excitedly.  
“I'll tell you about it when we're all lined up. Now go!” Kratos smiled and the contubernia scrambled to assemble. Mortuus kissed Sarah on the forehead and left her at the bleachers to be scowled at by Kratos. When he left she slunk back to the build site, unnoticed.  
The contubernia marched to the radio tower without stopping for seven and a half miles. It was out in the middle of nowhere, formerly used by the United States military and untouched for centuries after the war. It didn't provide the best signal anymore, but it was better than runners when it worked. At a half mile from the tower, they stopped so Otho could scout.  
The tower had been ransacked, the pitiful defenses the Legion had provided doing little to stop tribals from assaulting, killing the small guard placed there, and smashing the equipment. Before the Legion the tower had been a site of some small holy significance to the local tribes, but in an effort to quash local culture Caesar had killed what little prestige the tower once held, leaving it open to raiding parties.  
None of that was visible to Otho, though. From the outside the tower looked as it ever had- not in good condition but still standing. The squat building built next to the iron spire that received and relayed radio waves still had the sandbags piled around it at waist-height, and the door was still attached to its hinges. No one was around, but that wasn't as discouraging as it was encouraging. At least the radio tower wasn't occupied.  
“I dunno sir, they could be lying in wait,” Otho reported, “Although that seems pretty unlikely.”  
Raiders were not known for subtlety and if they were still around the radio tower, an experienced speculatore like Otho would definitely spot them. Kratos trusted Otho's judgement, and so the contubernia marched to the tower without much caution. They were undisturbed all the way up to the front door.  
“Everyone in position,” Kratos commanded, and the contubernia took battle stances. They were prepared for an ambush from inside and from the surrounding area. What they weren't prepared for was a completely empty building, which was what they discovered when Kratos cavalierly swung the door open with his spear at the ready. The contubernia relaxed and let out sighs of relief.  
“Well fuck, they just smashed it and moved-” Kratos was cut short by a shotgun blast to the face, from a shotgun rigged to go off whenever someone broke the tripwire placed just inside the door. It was the only thing the raiders had left behind.  
The contubernia heard the shot and took positions behind the sandbag walls. Decanus Kratos didn't fall over immediately, instead he stood there as though everything were okay, his back to his men. Slowly he began to pitch forward, and then his body dropped hard with his full dead weight. The contubernia surveyed the area, the shotgun blast still ringing in their ears. Blood quickly evacuated from the decanus' body and pooled around it.  
Reave sidled over to the decanus, crouching low. The other legionaries looked from him, to the inside of the radio tower, to the wasteland surrounding. Even though there were no hostiles within the immediate area, the blast from the shotgun had echoed across the wasteland, and it was bound to attract attention.  
“Dead?” Mortuus asked as Reave cautiously felt Kratos' wrist. Reave nodded his head silently. “Anything else?” Mortuus asked in the cryptic half-speak he and Reave used.  
Reave looked into the station control room. He spotted the broken tripwire, and followed it up to the rigged shotgun. It wasn't connected to anything else. He peered into the dark room and let his eyes adjust. He scanned the floor for mines or C4 or beartraps and found nothing, although a large piece of equipment had been knocked over and could possibly be housing something. There were no pressure plates, and when he looked at the ceiling, Reave couldn't see any grenade bouquets. He let Mortuus know it looked safe inside.  
Mortuus quietly motioned for the contubernia to enter the station. They moved fast, crouching and wary of threats. Reave and Mortuus dragged Kratos' body out of the door and into the room, and flipped him over. Reave had seen a lot of horrifying things in his career as a legionary, but Mortuus was less experienced and nearly vomited when he saw what was left of Kratos' face. The shotgun spared very little of it, but his left eye was still visible, and a piece of his left jaw remained, tethered by a few thin strips of tendon. On the right side, pieces of Kratos' frontal lobe could be seen, at least the parts not torn away by the shell.  
Mortuus took watch by the door while the others set about testing the equipment and assessing the damage. None of them knew much about electronics, but it didn't take much to realize that critical pieces were missing, namely the copper wire which attached the equipment to the tower proper. As soon as they realized there was nothing they could do, the contubernia beat a hasty retreat, Otho scouting ahead, and Water-Axe and Reave carrying the body of the decanus wrapped in a tarp.  
When they returned to Kingman, Mortuus gave Mandelay the report in Kratos' stead, while the other men took Kratos' body to be buried with Legion honors. Mandelay was angry to hear about Kratos, not so much at the loss of a man but that a decanus under his command could be so stupid.  
“You, what's your name?” he asked Mortuus after the report was finished. Mortuus told him. “Well, Mortuus Anima, did you send a lesser legionary to check the building before you went in?” Mortuus told him he had. “Then you're the new decanus.”  
Mortuus didn't know what to say, and so remained silent. He thought that the centurion must be joking, as he was the least experienced member of the contubernia. He thought that maybe he should protest the centurion's decision, but knew that questioning a centurion would get him whipped at the very least.  
“Congratulations. Don't fuck it up. Now get out of my sight,” Mandelay snapped. He wasn't eager to give the bad news about the radio tower to Caesar. Mortuus left hurriedly, unable to contain his smile.  
He returned to the contubernia- now his contubernia. They asked him what Mandelay said, and he told them with a straight face that he had been promoted to decanus. The legionaries stared back at him blankly.  
“Ohh, Caesar,” Water-Axe groaned, “We're all gonna die!”


	54. Heart & Soul Part VIII

Heart & Soul, part VIII  
The new cohort for Kingman arrived four days after Mortuus was made decanus. Caesar wasted no time mobilizing his forces, and they left Kingman the very same day. Mortuus never even saw any of the men stationed at Kingman Caesar's departure was so swift. He did manage to say goodbye to Sarah, though.  
“I don't know when we'll see each other again,” he told her.  
“Word is you'll head south, then east,” Sarah informed him. The slaves knew more about Caesar's plans than the legionaries. Centurions didn't care if slaves overheard them and word got around in the slave barracks, “Caesar hates Kingman for some reason, and he'll do anything to not return.”  
Sarah regretted telling Mortuus the truth when she saw how much it upset him. She knew their relationship was lopsided, that she could never again be as raw and vulnerable as Mortuus and his affections, and occasionally she acted callously without intending to. If she were allowed to be completely honest with herself, she didn't care in the slightest whether or not she saw him ever again, but she had enough sentiment to spare the boy's feelings.  
“I'll send you messages. I'll send a runner with messages for you, and they'll tell you how I'm doing, and you can send runners for me and I can hear how you're doing, and eventually we'll make our way back to each other,” she held him close, like she would hold someone she loved. It wasn't so long ago that she had forgotten the feeling entirely. Mortuus Anima helped her hold on to her memories of love.  
Mortuus was a child compared to Sarah, but even still he knew that he'd never be first in her heart. He could feel it in her every gesture that something was missing, that the woman he held and kissed and loved wasn't his, would never be his. That he held on to a phantom, a ghost of his own imagination. But he loved her. He couldn't not. He was scared to let her go, even though she wasn't really his. He kissed her deeply and passionately, one last time.  
“I'll come back for you,” he told her, “I love you.”  
She couldn't tell him that she loved him, so instead she kissed him back. It was the first time in their relationship that she initiated contact, and it was also the last. Mortuus would carry that kiss with him to his unmarked grave.  
Sarah and Mortuus parted ways, she to the slave barracks and he to his contubernia. It had been difficult to keep control of his men since becoming decanus. He knew he didn't deserve the post. All of them were more experienced than him, and they often second-guessed his orders. Sometimes they really did know better. Eventually, he realized it was smarter if he let his men do what they felt was right, and instead of ordering them he only relayed orders to them from centurions. His men weren't so totally undisciplined that when left to their own means they acted unbecoming of legionaries.  
Their orders were to join a group of four other contubernias and meet up with centurion Thoros in the south, then help him conquer Kofa. After that, they'd follow Thoros' centuriae back to Caesar's cohorts, and the whole of them would take Yuma, and then Arizona would be completely under the control of Caesar.  
Getting to Kofa was another matter entirely, though. It was 160 miles of badlands, and with forty men plus thirty slaves and equipment, the trip was going to be a week and a half at least. At least they could follow what was left of route 66 with the rest of Caesar's cohorts, but that was only 20 miles. For the rest of the 140 miles it was nothing but wasteland.  
The other four decanus were named Stephen, Sun-Goat, Leo, and Hadrianus, and they all came from different centuriae. They were all experienced in combat and leading, and they all worked together perfectly. Mortuus was the odd man out.  
Hadrianus took charge. He was a young man who had just turned twenty years old, and had been a decanus for the past year and a half, a promotion he earned by maintaining a strong position after his previous decanus was felled in battle. He had been part of the Legion since Caesar took Flagstaff ten years ago, and had distinguished himself during his six years of training by killing a yaoi gui with his machete. Like other tribals from Flagstaff he resembled an old west cowboy. He had a prominent, hawk-like nose and a lantern jaw.  
Leo was the oldest decanus at twenty-seven. He had a huge scar up the side of his face, a gift from a saber-toothed radlion whose teeth he still wore on a necklace he never took off. He had been inducted into the Legion after Phoenix had fallen, and after he was too old for the Legion training Hadrianus or Mortuus had been through. He had once been a warrior of a Phoenix tribe, and after proving his worth to Caesar he'd been promoted. Although he was only twenty-seven, his blond hair was graying at his temples. Occasionally he was referred to as Leo of Phoenix.  
Sun-Goat, like Leo, had been made a full legionary right after his conscription into the Legion, although he was only nineteen. He didn't know it, but he was slowly dying of syphilis. He was kept away from the slaves, because his sexual rapacity was so out of control that if left unchecked he'd do nothing but fuck them. He'd already infected an entire outpost with his STD. He was the product of incest, two generations of interbreeding that left him with four fingers on one hand and a lazy eye. He was an incredible warrior, though. He fought like he fucked, with abandon and without self-preservation. With only the barest tactics picked up from Caesar's teachings he was unstoppable.  
Stephen had joined the Legion willingly and proudly. He was from a small community of wastelanders that had fled a vault a few generations ago. Caesar's Legion had saved them all from being wiped out by Scorpion's Bite raiders, after which they all pledged undying loyalty to the Legion. Although he was a few generations removed, he still had the vault look; clean-cut, even haughty. He looked healthy, or at least healthier than the tribals that made up the Legion, although he looked more childish, too. He used a rifle to fight and it made him successful in battle and so he had earned the rank of decanus.  
All four men were paragons of Legion brutality and efficiency, and by the time the party reached Kofa all four were dead, along with most of their men and all of their slaves.  
They made it down 66 just fine, but a day after splitting from the main body things started going wrong. They made camp after marching for ten hours, secured a perimeter and posted guards. They had made camp for an hour and a half when the decanus convened for a meeting and they noticed Sun-Goat was missing. After searching, it was discovered that right after they secured the camp Sun-Goat had walked away to take a piss, and no-one had seen him since. Hadrianus took a head count of everyone and discovered that besides Sun-Goat, three slaves were also missing.  
“Shit!” Hadrianus said when the count was finished, “That bastard's off fucking slaves!”  
“Not surprising,” Stephen admitted, “Without any centurions to keep him off it, he's having his fun. I don't know what Centurion Tse-gah was thinking.”  
“Sun-Goat's an idiot, but he knows we'd report him if he acted out of line,” Leo defended him, “I don't buy it.”  
Mortuus stayed silent. Being the least qualified decanus combined with how little he knew his peers had caused him to revert to old ways. It was better he stay silent, he reasoned, lest he say something stupid and undermine his fragile authority. The other decanus ignored him anyway, not knowing he was promoted unjustly but sensing it all the same.  
In the end it was decided that Sun-Goat would find his way back, and that he was only fucking slaves. As a concession to Leo camp security was tightened in case there was a threat. Sun-Goat never came back, but no one else disappeared that night.  
For the next several days, they continued to hemorrhage legionaries and slaves a few at a time. No matter what they did, people kept disappearing in mysterious ways. Scouts wouldn't come back, guards would go missing. More terrifyingly, legionaries would lie down to sleep and in the morning they'd be gone, or slaves would enter tents to get supplies and never come out. Panic began to grip the contubernias. Leo, who was from Phoenix and thus knew the area a little better started to work on a theory as to what was wrong, but wasn't going to tell anyone until he proved his theory right.  
“Tonight, everyone sleeps on rocks. Big rocks,” he told the other three decanus. They set up tents on big flat rocks, as many as they could find. The camp was spread wide, but the way Leo ordered it and the fear of the mysterious disappearances gave Hadrianus and Stephen no room to argue.  
Nobody disappeared that night, but the weakened defenses gave a horde of endless walkers the opportunity to strike. More than twenty screaming ghouls appeared from the dark shadows of the badlands and descended on the legionaries with their animal ferocity. Leo was killed, along with most of the slaves and a whole contubernia's worth of legionaries, including Water-Axe from Mortuus' contubernia. The ghouls fought to the last, not one of them retreating even when the Legion turned the tide of the ambush.  
The next day, the camp was approached by ghouls again, this time friendly. It was a group of fugitives from the reservation, half-mad themselves from the sun but much more familiar with the area than the Legion. The guards nearly killed them on sight, but when the leader began to talk in english, rumpled hat in scarred hands, they let them through to the decanus.  
“Betcha wondering why folks disappear out here,” the leader growled. Hadrianus and Stephen reacted with disgust to the man and his radiation-ravaged appearance, but Mortuus listened intently. A group of ghouls from the Mojave wasteland used to trade with the Twisted Hairs, and Mortuus had always found them fair and friendly. He'd never been exposed to Caesar's anti-ghoul rhetoric like Stephen and Hadrianus had.  
“These're disapperin' lands. We had 'em near the rez. Folks go out into 'em an' don't come back,” the ghoul was excited to teach the Legion. He had encountered the Legion a few times in his travels, and he and his friends had become enamored with the way the Legion took what they wanted.  
“Get on with it wretch,” Hadrianus sneered.  
“Desert stalkers,” the ghoul said, “Ants with big piercers. They wait in the sand until yer vulnerable, then they jump up and bite ya, drag ya down,” the ghoul pantomimed, “That's what's happenin' to yer men. They all got sucked down by the desert stalkers.”  
Hadrianus disregarded what the ghoul said, but he allowed them to leave camp. The ghoul offered to stay and help, but the decanus rejected his offer. Hadrianus was a strong warrior, but he was arrogant. The legionaries, now down to twenty-six men and four slaves and badly demoralized continued their journey.  
They came to a wide expanse of red dirt and Reave caught Mortuus by the elbow.  
“I don't like the look of this. I have a feeling,” he told Mortuus. There was fear in his eyes, and Mortuus commanded his contubernia to hold back.  
“Oh please!” Hadrianus noticed Mortuus' reticence, “You really believe that hideous freak? Ghouls are garbage, Mortuus Anima. Whatever he said was a lie.”  
Hadrianus ordered all the men to start marching and took the lead. Mortuus and his men continued to wait. Hadrianus made it eighty feet into the red sands before he realized they weren't following.  
“Decanus!” he screamed, “You! And your men! March!”  
Mortuus was about to comply, when a huge set of tan pincers burst out of the ground underneath Hadrianus, piercing him in the chest. All around the men desert stalkers burst from the ground, grabbing men with their giant mandibles. Hadrianus screamed and tried to fight the insect off, hacking at its pincer with his machete. Mortuus and his men drew their weapons and ran to help the other legionaries.  
Stephen tried to fire his rifle into the desert stalker that had Hadrianus, but the bullets hit the ground harmlessly. A desert stalker came up behind him and wrenched him to the ground. His rifle flew out of his hands and hit the ground, going off and hitting Hadrianus in the thigh. The pain caused Hadrianus to stop struggling for a minute, allowing the stalker to drag him into the ground to his waist. It looked like the legionaries were done for, until a hideous howl overtook the legionaries' screams.  
The ghouls came back to help Mortuus and his men rescue the other legionaries. They tore the desert stalkers apart bodily, fighting side-by-side with Mortuus and Reave and Otho. They pulled the stalkers off of men, pulled the men out of the earth. In the end, the Legion only lost five more men. Hadrianus was the last to die. By the time Mortuus reached him, only his head and arm were above the sand. Mortuus held his hand and tried to pull him up, but it was too late. The desert stalker crushed his ribcage underneath the ground, and he died. His hand went slack and he was sucked under. No-one knew what happened to Stephen, but his rifle was all they found of him.  
“They aren't that strong,” the ghoul leader told Mortuus, “They prefer easy targets, and even then they mostly kill 'em by suffocatin' 'em with dirt.”  
Mortuus accepted the ghouls into the remaining party. He was the sole remaining authority, and none of men questioned his decision. They owed their lives to him and the ghouls. Even his own contubernia, who had been less-than-enthusiastic about his promotion listened to him now. With the ghouls they were back up to twenty-seven men. Under Mortuus' leadership and with the ghouls' help they made it all the way to Kofa without any more losses.  
Centurion Thoros wasn't happy to receive nearly half the forces he had been promised, but he was incensed that Mortuus had adopted ghouls into his men. He explicitly referred to the remaining legionaries as 'twenty-one' men, and when Mortuus corrected him he made it very clear that the ghouls were not legionaries, that they weren't even men. Even when Mortuus defended the ghouls, told Thoros how bravely they fought and how strong they were, that they were good warriors, Thoros still ordered him to kill the ghouls.  
Mortuus wasn't happy at the orders. He knew not to question the centurion, but the journey from Kingman to Kofa had changed him. He was no longer uncomfortable with his position, and he no longer second-guessed himself. He was a true decanus, now, and he wasn't scared to make decisions, even when they were difficult. He agreed to Thoros' orders and left the centurion's tent.  
He returned an hour later.  
“I need more men,” Mortuus told the centurion. Thoros, even angrier that his supposed support now needed resources from him, asked Mortuus why.  
“I told my men,” Mortuus emphasized 'men,' “to kill the ghouls.”  
“What's the problem then?” Thoros snapped.  
“My ghouls defended themselves,” Mortuus shrugged, “Two of them are dead, but the other four are still fine, and I'm down to three men.”  
In the end, Mortuus won. His supplementary forces already depleted, Thoros wasn't in a position to refuse Mortuus' ghouls their service. If there was any doubt left in Mortuus Anima's leadership, no one expressed it. His new contubernia fought at the front of Thoros' centuriae and won handily. The legend of the Dead Soul began.


	55. Heart & Soul Part IX

Heart & Soul, part IX  
In and out. Up and down. The blade skated on the whetstone. In and out. Up and down. The stone felt rough to Mortuus' hands, but to the blade it was smooth as ice. In and out. Up and down. With each pass the blade grew sharper.  
Mortuus was allowed to keep his ghoul soldiers. He was lashed for insubordination, but he was allowed to keep his ghoul soldiers. It was the first lashing Mortuus ever received, but it wouldn't be the last. It hurt more than he thought it would. It hurt more than anything in his life.  
In and out. Up and down. As he sharpened the blade, so too was he tempered into a deadly weapon. The imperfections ground away. In and out, up and down. The weapon grew meaner. Killing became easier and easier, easier than it had ever been before. All the extraneous bits pulled away by force and friction, leaving only the strongest and deadliest.  
He kept in contact with Sarah no matter where they went. With each battle and each victory, he made more connections in the Legion. He found slaves who could transcribe his messages, and he knew runners who would always let him know if they were heading to Kingman. Occasionally Sarah managed to get a message to him, and he would have a slave read it aloud.  
Sarah had very few things to say to him. Until she received his first message, she assumed he would forget about her. After Caesar won Yuma, though, a runner from the south arrived with a message written on the inside of a box of Dandy Boy Apples. Mortuus told her of his dangerous trip through the badlands, of the ghouls, and of his victories at Kofa and Yuma.  
She told him as little as she possibly could. She told him the fort was finished, and the Kingman cohort had moved in. She told him she missed him. She didn't tell him how poorly she'd been treated since he left. How even the other slaves were cruel to her because of the gentle way he had treated her. How Kingman had a surplus of slaves since they finished building the fort, and the legionaries, too scared to sell the slaves after what happened to the last legionaries of Kingman, had taken to pitting them against animals in the gladiator ring for amusement and to thin their numbers.  
She didn't tell him about the rapes and the beatings. She didn't tell him she miscarried again. She didn't tell him that the baby she lost was probably his. She didn't tell him how little she'd eaten in the days before she received his message. So many things had happened to her since he left, and she told him none of it. She wondered how he'd react if he knew. He might be angry or upset, but that didn't matter. It wasn't as though he could do anything about it anyway.  
She died when he was in the former state of New Mexico. As a slave she wasn't allowed access to clean drinking water, and so she developed several diseases, chiefly among them cholera. She died alone and among the dead, the last of a group of slaves isolated due to their illness. Her last, delirious thoughts were of her husband. She dreamed that he came for her, picked her up and held her. Her body and the bodies of all the others that died from the unclean water were left out to be picked clean by wasteland scavengers. Mortuus didn't hear about her passing for six months.  
In and out. Up and down. The blade grew sharper and the man grew colder. Since Yuma he hadn't been involved in any outright battles, but there were plenty of skirmishes in New Mexico. He and his contubernia had been transferred between six different centuriae since Kofa. Typically, if a centurion pissed Caesar off they were assigned the dead souls, and each centurion had taken his anger out on Mortuus, personally. Each one of them had him lashed for insubordination. In and out. Up and down.  
Mortuus hadn't sent a letter to Sarah in awhile, so he composed an extra long one. Although he couldn't openly complain about the way he was treated by his superiors, his frustration was palpable. He complained about New Mexico, about the food. He wished he could be back in Kingman with her. He wished he'd never been promoted. The slave recorded it all dutifully, not impressed with his complaints. Even with all the punishment he'd been subjected to, it paled in comparison to the punishment she had endured. She didn't even like ghouls, and felt that his punishment for bringing their filth into the Legion wasn't enough.  
Sarah never received his letter. She was long dead by the time the runner made it to Kingman. The runner was relieved. Mortuus had saved his life, but he resented having to run Mortuus' stupid mash notes. He was embarrassed to have to ask to see Sarah every time he was in Kingman. When he told Mortuus what happened he acted more sympathetic than he felt, out of respect.  
Mortuus didn't react. He grunted noncommittally and muttered, “Thanks.” When the runner left him, he stayed where he was. He was sitting on a rock, sharpening the lawnmower blade he used as a machete. In and out. Up and down. In and up. Out and down. He continued for a few minutes, and then stopped. His hands were shaking too much. He stared into the middle distance and fought back tears. He rationalized. He remembered how long it had been since he'd seen her. How phony the relationship had always been. That didn't work. He felt the tears flow down his grimy cheeks. He dropped his machete and held his head in his hands. When he bent over the fresh lashes on his back radiated pain. It helped him focus on something else, and he calmed down.  
He thought of her constantly for a week. He couldn't get her out of his head, he couldn't stop thinking about his loss. As he trained he thought of her. As he lead his men he thought of her. As he killed he thought of her. He couldn't stop thinking about her until the gift arrived.  
What he didn't know, through all the lashings and punishment and scorn, was that Caesar admired him. His contubernia had drawn the attention of every legionary in cohorts the wasteland over, but it had also drawn the attention of their master. Caesar admired Mortuus' bravery even as he loathed it. When Thoros admitted how he had been outwitted by the young man, Caesar was forced to admit his  
respect for such a brutal and effective tactic, although only to himself. He personally oversaw Mortuus' first whipping, watching closely as Mortuus endured the pain. He learned what he could about Mortuus Anima, and was surprised to realize he was the same young man who held off the Devines in Kingman. He also knew, when the time came, that the newly-subjugated Twisted Hairs were the dead soul's former tribe.  
He arranged through secret channels a gift for the legionary who defied him so brazenly. He did so in a way that made it unclear who the gift came from, but made sure it was delivered quickly and discreetly. He knew, in an unknowable way, that Mortuus would know what it meant.  
It was delivered to the dead soul wrapped in a Legion standard, the thick red cloth made of better materials than anything Mortuus owned. It was given to him by a frumentariius who quickly disappeared before he could answer any questions. Mortuus Anima held the package in his hands for a moment, unsure what to think. Then he slowly, carefully unwrapped it, making sure the standard did not touch the ground. When he finished unfurling, he could only stare, all thoughts of Sarah vanished from his mind.  
There, sitting upon Caesar's black bull, was an object he knew well. Its pearl handle and shinning steel, kept beautiful through generation after generation of his ancestors was an object of no small significance to him. When he was sold to the Legion, it stayed with his grandfather. Now it was here. The message was obvious. Dry Wells had fallen. The Twisted Hairs were no more. His grandfather was dead. He picked the machete up, held it in his hand and let the badlands sun glint off it. In and out. Up and down.


	56. Heart & Soul Part X

Heart & Soul, part X

Mortuus Anima's ancestral machete bisected the raider's skull neatly. The blade, driven by the force of the dead soul's swing, cleanly split the hemispheres of the man's brain. Mortuus let the blade linger for only a moment, before sliding it out slowly and cruelly. He released the man, who he had held by the throat, to fall limp to the ground. A bullet struck the ground only a foot away from the dead soul's feet.

He snarled and followed the sound of the rifle's retort up to the raider who fired it. He sheathed his blade and scrambled up the rocks while the panicking raider fired again. The bullet whizzed past Mortuus' ear, so close he could feel it. He wasn't scared. He knew he couldn't die. Not yet. He reached the raider just as the man's gun jammed, and threw him to the ground. He held him there, beating his face again and again until it was red pulp. The rest of the raiders fled or fell to the dead souls.

Mortuus knew he couldn't die because he had to find his sister. He had to find her and protect her and be a family again. She needed him. He knew that. After he received Caesar's 'gift', she was the first thing that came to his mind when he could think again. He knew she was still alive, even though the rest of his tribe was gone. He knew that until he found her he couldn't fall in battle. The purpose gave him strength. His purpose shielded him from harm.

It kept him alive for more than eleven years. Eleven long years, full of more bloodshed and battle than any tribal had ever seen in the badlands. Despite his wasteland-spanning reputation as a vicious killer and terrifying beast, Mortuus Anima was seen as a liability to the Legion for most of his life. He was too talented a warrior to execute, but as the years went on he became more and more defiant, resulting in orders that became more and more dangerous.

When his commanders could no longer bear the insult of his contubernia's continued existence he was sent on scouting missions, where he could not shame the Legion by being seen among them. Although he relished battle, he didn't mind the long trips away. He and his men knew how to be self-sufficient, and when they were deep in the wasteland it meant less harassment from their peers. When they were out in uncharted territory, they were given more autonomy, and they took advantage of it. They kept things from their commanders, left out times they slaughtered settlements for fun or recovered valuable goods. Once they were at least seven miles from Legion territory, they had free reign.

Not that they weren't loyal to the Legion. They were, and fanatically so. Anything less meant death. When the rest of the centuriae met up with the contubernia and discovered that Mortuus had taken to wearing an enormous white stetson, it wasn't insubordination so much as it was doubt, the seed of which had been planted in Mortuus' mind when he was made decanus. He knew he was unqualified, and Mandelay didn't. Despite the rhetoric towards the contrary, the centurion was wrong, and Mortuus would always doubt Legion leadership because of it. Who knew what else the centurions didn't know? They certainly didn't know the value of ghoul soldiers. Mortuus liked his hat, and even though it meant more whippings, he continued to wear it.

Out of all his superiors, Mortuus had the best relationship with Graham. He and the legate shared similar sensibilities. Both men were quiet, but extremely dangerous, and neither were prone to theatrics and grandstanding like Caesar and some of his centurions. They lived to fight, and let nothing stand in the way. Neither of them cared if Mortuus wore a cowboy hat, but both of them expressed approval to see the brim stained with blood.

Mortuus spent much of his career under the legate's command, although very rarely directly. Most of the time he was passed around amongst the Malpais' centurions. For eleven years his loyal service and prowess in battle was rewarded with scorn and increasingly dangerous orders. He relished all of it. Never once was he disappointed to find himself marching at the front of the Legion, the first into fire.

After he reconnected with his sister, however briefly, his invincibility waned. He never stopped searching for her, but it no longer drove him forward, and his purpose no longer protected him. He knew, even without really knowing, that his sister was safe, and the drive to protect her no longer fueled him like it once did.

He was getting older, too. The things that were easy for him when he was twenty years old were harder when he was twenty-nine. In the Legion men with records half as impressive as him were promoted to positions of power. Centurions and praetorians were still held to a standard of physical excellence, but they didn't have to risk their bodies like Mortuus did. The constant warfare took its toll on him. He would wake up in the mornings completely sore all over, and he'd strain his muscles and hurt himself more and more often.

After sixteen years of distinguished service on the front lines of the Legion, he came the closest he'd ever come to falling in battle. As the Legion conquered more territory, they fought more dangerous foes. Tribes that had heard of the Legion and joined forces to oppose Caesar. In battle against one such tribe, the dead soul cut down swathes of men, but as the battle raged on he grew slower, his attacks grew weaker. A tribal warrior got the jump on him, and as the man's blade swung down, he thought it was the end. The weapon sliced open the left side of his head, starting at the eyebrow and going all the way back. It was too blunt to cut bone, though, and after a moment Mortuus realized he wasn't dead and grabbed the tribal's arm. He broke it in two places and ripped off the tribal's mandible in anger. He killed two more tribals with blood dripping down the side of his face, but he had to retreat when he couldn't see straight. Afterwards he was almost totally blind in his left eye.

The wound only served to grow his legacy in the greater wasteland, but every time he felt the scar he was reminded that his time as a great warrior was swiftly coming to an end. He couldn't move as fast as he used to, he couldn't cut as deep, and he couldn't think as clearly. Through sheer force of will he kept his dwindling strength a secret, but when Reave killed himself at Twin Mothers, Mortuus Anima was losing hope. He woke most days with gritted teeth, thinking _please let me die strong._

_ Please let me die a warrior._


	57. Romulus Reprobaverunt

Romulus Reprobaverunt  
The report Operation Remus compiled on Mortuus Anima contained in sum:

<2252 Treety w/ Twst Hares is go. Perchased new recrute. Foul preisisses namd him MORTUUS ANIMA>  
<2256 Recruit MORTUUS ANIMA – Centurion CATO THE BLUDY>  
<2257 Centurion CATO THE BLUDY executed for treason- centuriae to die for same>  
<2258 Decanus MORTUUS ANIMA reprts radeo towr gamma/Kingman brokn/ransackd>  
<2258 Centurion THOROS' forces to be suplimented with contubernia as folows: Decanus STEPHEN Decanus SUN-GOAT Decanus LEO Decanus HADRIANUS Decanus MORTUUS ANIMA>  
<2258 Centurion THOROS met the rest of the force at Yuma. Yuma conquered>  
<2259 Decanus MORTUUS ANIMA disciplined for insubordination>  
<2259 MORTUUS ANIMA traded to Centurion WILLIAMS>  
<2259 Decanus MORTUUS ANIMA disciplined for insubordination>  
<2260 Decanus MORTUUS ANIMA disciplined for insubordination>  
<2263 Warlord Tarsus is eliminated. Processing of slaves begins at 0600. Decanus ANIMA and his contubernia took lead, practically conquered warlord's stronghold singlehandedly.>  
<2263 Centurion WILLIAMS to head south to El Paso, will meet up with Centurion AURELIUS>  
<2266 MORTUUS ANIMA traded to Centurion CORRAM>  
<2266 Centurion CORRAM commended for victory over profligate tribals.>  
<2266 MORTUUS ANIMA traded to Centurion BRUTUS>  
<2266 MORTUUS ANIMA disciplined for insubordination>  
<2266 Centurion BRUTUS commended for victory.>  
<2266 Centurion BRUTUS to head north on 25, Centurion JANUS will follow 40, then swing around>  
<2266 MORTUUS ANIMA traded to Centurion AURELIUS>  
<2267 Centurion AURELIUS expanded territory by 40 sq miles>  
<2267 MORTUUS ANIMA traded to Centurion CORRAM>  
<2268 Centurion CORRAM transferred to Flagstaff>  
<2268 Fought the Teziis. MORTUUS ANIMA still not dead>  
<2270 Centurion CORRAM set out on campaign against Manti-La today.>  
<2270 Decanus MORTUUS ANIMA and contubernia sent to destroy hunting grounds, while rest of centuriae harras Manteela w/ skirmshes>  
<2270 Decanus MORTUUS ANIMA disciplined for insubordination>  
<2270 MORTUUS ANIMA disciplined for insubordination>  
<2270 Decanus DEAD SEA along with Decanus MORTUUS ANIMA to suppliment Centurion MANDELAY's forces at Kiowa.>  
<2270 MORTUUS ANIMA traded to Centurion JANUS>  
<2271 Command of Decanus ANIMA and contubernia transfrd to Centurion UNREADABLE>  
<2271 Decanus ANIMA disciplined for insubordination>  
<2271 MORTUUS ANIMA and contubernia assind to scowting>  
<2275 MORTUUS ANIMA reassigned to Centurion JANUS' command.>  
<2275 Legate to head north to Twin Mothers w/ Centurions JANUS AURELIUS VENATOR FRANKLIN JONES BAOLTAI>  
<2275 Centurion JANUS to guard road south>  
<2275 MORTUUS ANIMA under Centurion VENATOR's command, as part of deal for Twin Mothers slave. Should be the end of it.>  
<2275 Centurion SCIPIO VENATOR to be executed for treason. Centuriae to die for same>

Thirty-seven terse journal entries spanning twenty-three years. That was all that was left of Julia's brother. They were all she had. She read them over and over again. She wanted to find some hidden code, some greater meaning. Something she was missing because of all the med-x and bufo and alcohol. There was information she knew to be contradictory, and there were whole years missing from her brother's life, but there was nothing about how he felt, who he loved, who he really was. There was nothing that could give her a better understanding of the man that was once her brother. There never would be.  
2259 was the year Vulpes Inculta betrayed the Twisted Hairs, but the three entries dating from that year said absolutely nothing about how Mortuus felt about it, whether he felt alone or sad or even if he didn't care at all. 2270 was the year Julia made contact with Mortuus again, but the six logs from that year didn't explain how he felt the morning after she disappeared into the badlands night. They didn't say if he felt betrayed or confused by her leaving.   
She couldn't tell if he'd left anyone behind. If he'd ever lost anyone. Operation Remus had recovered thousands upon thousands of records from the Legion, yet for her there was nothing. She had nothing. She set the transcript on fire, then sat at the table in her scrap-metal shack for awhile. She couldn't feel the cold night air on her skin. She couldn't feel anything.


	58. Nuclear Family

Nuclear Family

Atia stayed up late so she could be there when Julia arrived home, but it was no use. Julia came home around one in the morning reeking of smoke and vomit; she stared past Atia to the apartment's couch, which she quickly made her way to and fell upon without once acknowledging anything Atia said. It was the same for a week.

Julia arranged them into a facsimile of a prewar household. They had an apartment in the new dormitory, with two bedrooms and a kitchen and a private bathroom (luxury allowed to the high priestess of Hecate). Atia was the mother, Julia the father, and Julius their son. They'd all wake up together in the mornings and have breakfast. Julius was educated with the other children during the day while his mother worked in the archives and Julia worked in the temple. Unlike the other children Julius' mother picked him up at the end of the day and took him home instead of the child barracks. Then she'd cook him and (if she was home) Julia dinner, and after dinner she or (if she was home) Julia would read to him until Atia put him to bed. Inside and outside the apartment, Julia had all the power. No matter how hard she tried to deny it, some days Atia felt like she was still living among the Legion.

She was awoken when Julius came into her room and crawled into bed with her. She embraced him and they lay there for awhile before getting up. They walked past the living room and into the kitchen. Julia was still asleep on the couch, face down away from the fresh morning sun that shone through the small window above her. In the kitchen Atia made breakfast while Julius drew with crayons. She cooked eggs with a little bit of pepper and tomato. Julius was being quiet but she didn't bother to dim the noise her cooking made. She boiled coffee on another burner.

She gave a plate of eggs to Julius, who complained that there was no bacon.

“Just eat your eggs,” Atia ordered and he complied. She set the rest of the eggs aside for her and Julia then tidied the kitchen. If she didn't clean before she ate she wouldn't clean until she came home from the archives, and by the time she finished she'd have to start dinner and not have any rest after coming home from work.

Julius just finished his breakfast when Julia slouched into the kitchen. Atia told her son to go his room and get ready for school. Julia ruffled his hair as he walked past then she sidled up to Atia.

“We have any bacon?” Julia asked her, “Or onion?”

Atia poured a cup of coffee and handed it to Julia without looking at her, “No. Rationing. Food's tight right now. No salt either.”

Julia opened a cabinet, then poured the scant remains of a plastic whiskey bottle into her coffee. She took her eggs and sat in Julius' vacated seat. She wolfed the eggs down, stopping only to drink. Atia watched her silently, leaning on the stove. Julius could be heard in his room, throwing things in a bag to get ready for the day.

“They're good,” Julia said into her fork. She finished the eggs and then drank the last of her coffee. She sighed and ran her fingers through her hair before she got up and poured herself another cup. It was getting long, nearly to her shoulders. She let it grow out when she was in Ouroboros, but this morning it was unwashed and extra thick with grease.

“You've been out late a lot lately,” Atia said. Julia didn't care for her observation and shot her a glare. She sat down at the table again and drank before talking.

“Yeah, big happenings at the temple,” she said, then paused, “I might be gone for awhile soon.”

“Starting when?”

“...Today,” Julia said sheepishly.

Atia sucked her teeth before continuing, “And where are you going?” she asked, knowing that she wasn't going to get an answer.

“I don't know,” Julia muttered into her coffee.

“Bullshit,” Atia snapped, “Bullshit! You are so full of shit, Jules!”

“Ati-” Julia pleaded but was cut short.

“You never tell me anything! I never know anything! You come and go as you please and just assume that I'm fine with whatever, that I don't mind being kept in the dark! Being treated like a child, or-or-or your f... fucking slave! Well I live here too! I care about these people too! I can help!”

Julia swallowed her anger and repressed the urge to throw her mug at Atia's face. She wasn't used to being talked to like that, and she'd murdered people in the wasteland for less. She always carried that with her, but this time she restrained herself. She ran her fingers through her hair again.

“You want to know? You want to know where I'm going?” she hissed, rising from her seat slowly. She could see the fear in Atia's eyes and it spurned her gleefully forward, “I. Don't. Know.”

Atia regretted provoking her unstable companion. There was a hollowness behind Julia's big brown eyes, a gaping void that Atia had thrown wide open, she realized in terror. She tried to make herself smaller, truly scared that Julia might hurt her.

“I. Don't. Know!” Julia suddenly screamed, “I'm about to follow Hecate into the wasteland and I don't know where the fuck we're going! I have to keep us alive as she drags us to fuck-if-I-know, Utah! I don't even think she knows where we're going!”

Atia turned around and looked away. Julia drew close, close enough that Atia could feel her breath on the back of her neck.

“You want to be a part of the temple? You want to know? Nobody knows. Nobody knows anything! Especially not you but me too, but I still have to make the decisions! I've sent people to their deaths, and sometimes,” Julia spoke softer, directly into Atia's ear through clenched teeth, “I knew I was doing it. You want to be in charge? You want to make those decisions? You want to knowingly send the people you love to their deaths?”

Atia said nothing. They stood there for a moment longer, Atia cowed and Julia slowly calming down. She studied Atia's delicate ear, a soft pale nautilus. Her breath slowed. She tried to take Atia's hand, but Atia pulled it away. She held it to her breast and played with her hair.

“Should I talk to him?” she asked Julia softly while not taking her eyes away from the stove top.

“I'll talk to him,” Julia sighed sadly and slipped away. She stalked down the hall past Julius' door (which she unhappily noted was open) and into the bathroom, where she primped a little. Then she entered Atia's room and gathered a few things. She peeked around the corner into Julius' bedroom. He was on the floor, surrounded by toys and notebooks. He didn't acknowledge her.

“Hey buddy,” she said, and he looked up at her eyes peeking out just past the doorframe. He didn't respond, and looked back down at his feet. She slid into his room anyway, something for him held behind her back. She crouched down until she was at his level. He looked back up into her eyes, and when she smiled he involuntarily smiled back.

“You gonna be a good boy while I'm gone?” she asked impishly. Atia didn't like it when Julia encouraged her son to act out. She told Julia she never had to deal with the consequences like she had to. Julia had to admit that was true.

Julius nodded his head, making it perfectly clear he had absolutely no intention of being a 'good boy'. Julia's wolfish grin grew wider, “Good, because I have something for you and I want you to take good care of it.”

She showed him what was in her hand, a pocket knife made for the United States of America army. His eyes sparkled when he saw it. Julia demonstrated how to unfold and fold it, then handed it to him.

“It's not much good for fighting, but it can carve or skin. Might even be decent for forcing a lock, but only if you have to,” she said. He held the knife in his hand, gazing at it like it was some totem of great power. Her smile got sad. She never felt as though she was spending enough time with the boy she loved so dearly. There were always words between them that never got said, and in that way there was always something separating them. The knife was a stupid little nothing gift, but it was all she could think to stay close to him, at least in some small part. He held the knife to his breast.

“Be safe, mama,” he said to her. She tousled his hair and stood up.

“Whatever you say, kiddo.”

She left the apartment to gather her personal effects in the armory. She left without saying goodbye to Atia. She was pissed that she riled her up in front of Julius. They had their differences, but usually they were good about leaving the boy out of it. She wasn't worried about anybody else who heard her yell. Despite all her shouting, the only people in the dormitory who heard the fight were Atia, Julius, and Athena, who had been listening through the vents ever since she'd moved into the smaller apartment below them.


	59. Dark Mother

Dark Mother

The Hemez Falls incident was the final straw. A simple operation, something that in previous years was nothing to the Daughters, yet it all went so terribly wrong. Six followers were dead, all their guns and gear were gone. All the resources put into the operation were lost, and all the potential resources gained by the operation were lost, and all at a time when the Daughters had nothing extra to spare. The disaster made it mortally clear to Hecate just how much her influence had waned.

Caesar's power, meanwhile, was growing with each conquered tribe. Nearly the entire southwest wasteland was under the banner of the bull, more than eighty tribes. Some had fallen to him willingly, some had to be coerced. Those that resisted were culled, and stricken from recorded memory. It was exactly what Hecate did roughly fifteen years earlier but louder and more poorly managed.

While the so-called Son of Mars claimed the wasteland as his own, Hecate had already conquered the tribes of the four corners. She had accomplished it through intimidation and proselytizing rather than violence and warfare. She converted all the tribes to worship of her (and eliminated those that refused) long before the Legion brought the sword to them. Caesar was not uniting the wasteland, because it had already been united in worship. He was stealing the goddess' influence. All the territory that Caesar had come to control was territory he had unknowingly taken from her. Although she still had plenty of followers among those subjugated by the bull, they were forced to worship in secret and were no longer subject to her direct commands. Save the work of Maenad infiltrators the whole of Caesar's nascent empire was out of her control.

Not that it mattered. The setbacks posed by the Legion's growing power meant little to Hecate's master plan. She was already finished with most if not all of the tribes now serving Caesar. She had bled them dry. Although Caesar might have taken control of the present from her, she had stolen the future of the wasteland long ago. The only problem she hadn't foreseen was just how long it would take for that future to develop. The eldest warriors of her genetically superior army were only fifteen years old and there weren't many of them. Even though the Legion had started to use child soldiers she placed a higher value on the lives in service to her, and so she had to wait.

She was at an impasse. She couldn't re-take the wasteland until her soldiers matured, but she couldn't do nothing. Her Daughters were restless. They were sick of rationing. Ouroboros' resources were stretched thin by the influx of Harpies without tribes to command. Julia's Operation Remus helped stall the malaise, but aside from keeping up to date on Legion records the project was over. Even the drugs and alcohol imbibed as ritual were on short supply. For once, the goddess didn't have answers, and she didn't know what to do. It was as though she was once again young and lost in the wasteland. She needed guidance, and there was only one place she could turn.

It was the first time she stepped foot outside Ouroboros since its founding. She did it in secret, using the escape tunnel she'd built into her chambers in the temple. Julia met her on the other side, seven-hundred feet outside of town, the sky nearly faded away to stars.

Julia was not excited. She had offered to make the journey on the goddess' behalf, but Hecate refused to tell her the destination or what they expected to find there. Unknown to Julia (although she certainly suspected it), even Hecate herself did not exactly know where they were going.

The lack of details meant Julia couldn't prepare properly for the journey. She didn't even know how long they'd be gone, so she was forced to stock up on as much food and water as she could carry, to the detriment of everything else. It was the best she could do, given the circumstances. Although she was anxious about marching blindly into the wasteland without a destination, she was ready for it.

The same could not be said of Hecate. She knew the southwest wasteland very well, but only in abstract, as lines of coordinates and census data and surveyor reports. Her great eye saw all, but divorced from her sibyls and printouts and computers in the temple, she was left with only her two very human eyes, which had not seen the wasteland in more than a decade. In the temple she was the Goddess, an all-powerful being who commanded the earth and the sky and knew everything, but out in the world she was just a woman. She was blind, groping in the darkness, trying to find her way back to a place she hadn't been to since before she founded her temple, purely through intuition.

They traveled at night under the cover of darkness, starting out during the new moon. Hecate would meditate and stare into the wasteland, scanning the horizon as though she were trying to ask it a question. Eventually she'd point to wherever she wanted to go next, usually a visible but distant landmark, a sight she half-remembered. It was in her best interest to be specific, since as long as Julia had an immediate goal to reach she was too distracted to wonder about where they were really headed. They took long, difficult routes, avoiding all other life in the wasteland. The journey was slow going. In the temple Hecate seemed spry and youthful, but out climbing rocks in the badlands she was clumsy and slow. Julia had to carry her weight most of the time.

On top of that, Julia couldn't scout very far ahead because she didn't know where they were going. They had more than few close calls because she didn't accurately predict where Hecate would take them next. Each time they barely avoided a Legion scouting party or saber-toothed radlion on the prowl Hecate chastised Julia and complained about her 'lack of foresight.' Hecate complained often as they traveled. When she wasn't complaining she would talk fondly about the wasteland before Caesar and his Legion.

“We used to have all we need,” she'd say as her daughter helped her up the side of an embankment. The straps of Julia's backpack bit into her shoulders as she hoisted the goddess up. “Everyone had their place and we all worked together. Everyone had something to contribute and no one had too much.”

They traveled for two and a half weeks, meandering in a roughly north-eastern direction, Hecate deciding where they would head next based on nothing more than intuition and half-forgotten memories. Julia was starting to catch on. She pressed Hecate about their destination more and more, hoping for some clues, something that she could use to help them get there, to help her scout, something- anything- that would prove that they weren't just marching out into the wastes to die, but Hecate only gave her cryptic answers that told her nothing.

“A place I have been before. Someplace very full of life, but very empty also,” Hecate would say, before continuing to complain about the Legion or Julia or how things used to be better.

“Everyone was cared for. We all looked out for each other. No one was left wanting,” Julia heard the same diatribe or something similar at least once a night since they left Ouroboros. Once, Hecate wouldn't stop talking about how wonderful life with the tribe was while an alpha deathclaw stood sharpening his claws a mere hundred feet away. As it turned out the goddess had very little survival instinct, which didn't surprise Julia too much, given how sheltered she'd been within her temple and before then among the Twisted Hairs. If anything, Julia was surprised Hecate had somehow successfully made the same journey without her before.

“Your grandfather always knew best,” Hecate said. Julia was thankful for her mask, which concealed her involuntary eye-roll and sneer. The goddess brought up Harpy frequently as they made their way through the wastes. That got under Julia's skin more than anything else, but thankfully the stress of keeping Hecate alive distracted her too much to let her dwell on it. All she could do was grind her teeth and press onward.

“The elders and your grandfather, they earned their place, through hard work and sacrifice. The system,” Julia pulled the goddess, enraptured by her own words, up a cliff-face, “Was perfect, entirely self-contained. The fittest survived to lead the next generation into the future. They were tested, but they persevered and were only stronger for it.”

The dawn was coming. Julia hurried the goddess along, trying to make it up the cliff-face before the sun's light exposed them for all the wasteland to see. They were deep in enemy territory, near where Julia had seen her brother in the Manti-La's hunting grounds. She was tired and stressed. She wanted to find a safe place to camp and sleep. Hecate continued to prattle on unaware.

“Take your grandfather, for instance. He led a hard life. He saw his only son torn apart by enemies of the tribe. When he was a boy, he lost three brothers. It was hard, but it made him strong. Made him smart. Taught him how to lead the tribe to victory. We prospered under his leadership. You prospered under his tutelage.”

Julia ground her teeth. She scouted over the crest of the cliff, then pushed the goddess up. She felt itchy and sweaty and she had a headache. Once they were safe she made a small fire. They ate jerky and boiled some wasteland nettles as the sun came up.

“One day, I'll make it the way it once was. Your grandfather's legacy will continue, and the Twisted Hairs shall thrive again,” Hecate finished over the fire.

Julia massaged her temples. She waited for the goddess to continue, but Hecate was finally silent, chewing her nettles thoughtfully. She stared at the woman across the fire.

“Dark Mother,” she said. Hecate paused. It was the first time anyone called her by that name in more than a decade. Even Julia had never addressed her that way since she became the goddess Hecate. Hecate guessed it was because Julia wanted the past to be forgotten, and she respected that. She never referred to her second-in-command as 'Arama', the diminutive non-name that she assumed Julia was eager to leave behind.

She waited calmly for her daughter to continue. They stared into each other's eyes through the fire, big brown Twisted Hair eyes searching each other. Julia struggled to find the words she wanted to say. She opened her mouth, but stopped just short of speaking.

“I betrayed the Twisted Hairs,” she said suddenly. She was silent again, only the crackling of the fire could be heard in the crisp morning air.

“I sold your... _our_ people out to the Legion,” she clarified. She could see the fire reflected in Hecate's eyes, as Hecate could see it reflected in hers. As she talked her voice grew steadier and more confident.

“When I was sixteen, I collaborated with Vulpes Inculta to undermine and enslave the tribe. I acted within the village to sow chaos and cripple our defenses so Vulpes and his men could capture the entire tribe without resistance. I murdered elder Harpy when he was vulnerable and alone, and I left our people to be enslaved.”

The morning air was still cold from the night before. Neither woman could feel the warmth from the fresh sun. The fire crackled. Julia's gaze never left the goddess' eyes. They stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity, but was only seconds. Hecate's anger boiled to the surface and overcame the shock of her daughter's confession.

“What?” she said.

“I killed the Twisted Hairs,” Julia answered much too fast, clearly proud of her betrayal.

“What,” Hecate said again, not actually asking. She rose to her feet, and Julia did the same, only much faster.

“What!?” Hecate said again. She never felt so angry in her entire life.

“I killed the Twisted Hairs!” Julia shrieked gleefully. She fled from the campfire, down the side of the mesa, “I killed the Twisted Hairs, I ruined them!”

Hecate chased her as she danced away, “You act like it was paradise, like everything was fucking perfect,” she screamed, her words echoing, not caring who or what heard them, “Well it wasn't! It wasn't it wasn't it wasn't!”

Hecate was too angry to respond, too engrossed in catching Julia. Julia could feel tears welling in the corner of her eyes.

“They treated you like dirt! They treated us like dirt! You know what the others called you? Mother-of-Many! Because to them, you were a whore, you were garbage!” she started throwing rocks at Hecate, who clumsily tried to follow her along the cliff-face. She struck the goddess hard in the upper thigh, but Hecate didn't even feel it. She was consumed with anger, so much anger she couldn't even think. She didn't know what she would do when she caught Julia, but she knew she had to. Maybe she'd kill her. She stumbled shakily through the rocks that Julia had so nimbly navigated.

“They treated you like garbage! You wear those fucking braids,” Julia cried, “You have those fucking dreads and, and, and you don't even realize that, that, that they're, they're f... fucking shackles!” she threw another rock that missed and pleaded with the goddess.

“You know nothing, you-” the goddess managed to hiss before she was cut short.

One second Hecate stood in front of Julia, brimming with rage and wild like a deathclaw, and the next second she was gone. The ground slipped out from under her. She didn't even have time to react.

Neither did Julia. She stood in shock on the side of the cliff, the wind whistling around her, suddenly more alone than she'd ever been in her life.


	60. Arama

Arama

She stuffed everything she owned into her fine canvas bag. A couple of drab, stiff dresses, two head scarves, her makeup made of oils and clay, her salves and tinctures, bandages, a few ancient hardcover books that she'd read hundreds of times over, and her spare knife. It was the same routine every night. She put on her finest dress, strapped her knife to her hip, carefully and systematically packed up all her things, stared at the bag for awhile, then carefully and systematically unpacked everything, and put it back where it belonged in the room she once shared with her brother. After she unpacked and made sure everything looked exactly as it had before, she would leave her grandfather's house and have sex with another girl's husband.

Lately it was Raven. He was tall and broad-shouldered, and he had a nose like a bird's beak. He was older than her, by about eight years. He had three children with his wife Patricia, two boys and a girl. The eldest was ten. A few months ago, the boy scraped himself up bad while climbing on some rocks, so Raven brought him to her.

Even though she'd revolutionized medicine in the tribe, the office of tribe healer was still regarded with suspicion and scorn. Dark Mother's legacy as a butcher and mystic met her reputation as a seductress. To the tribe's credit, her reputation as a seductress was well-earned. Raven's wife knew quite a few women whose husbands had fallen for her charms and she didn't want him to talk to her, but he said he had to for their son. She refused to join, her fear and scorn of the girl outweighing her fear of losing her husband. He didn't ask her to come anyway. By the time he approached her carrying his son in his big, ropy arms he was nearly the only married man not an elder she hadn't slept with.

She watched him approach, warily appraising him with her big tired eyes. She was lounging near the center of the village, taking a break after gathering herbs. He strode confidently up to her and she waited for him to speak first, fighting back a wry smile. He told her about his son, and she appraised the boy's wounds thoughtfully, then looked into his scared but determined eyes.

“Will you help my son?” his father asked.

“Come with me,” she smiled a sly smile and beckoned him to follow her to into her grandfather's home. She had transformed the front room into a makeshift doctor's office. The floor and walls were cluttered with salvaged medical equipment, crutches and tubing that made the room smell funny. Old strips of bandages that she'd cleaned, used and re-used, hung from the ceiling drying. She wiped down the smooth stone table on the edge of the room (an extremely expensive addition) with a cloth she pulled out of frothy water in a metal bucket and told Raven to lie his son down. She took a glass jar full of healing salve out of the big, pre-war cabinet in the corner, and carefully applied the salve to the boy's wounds before wrapping them in bandages. She ignored Raven and spoke only to his son, smiling and telling him he was a brave boy for not crying. When she tried to apply salve to his arm he yelped and retreated, so she dosed him with some painkiller in order to examine it. It was broken. She made a cast out of mud, then helped Raven bring him out into the sun so it could dry.

“He won't be able to use that arm for awhile, but when it's healed it'll be stronger than ever,” she smiled at Raven, that heavy-lidded _I know something and I'm not telling_ smile. He couldn't help smiling back but mostly focused on his son, who smiled a dopey, drugged-up smile at him. She went back inside to clean the jar of salve she'd emptied while he sat with his boy in the hot wasteland sun.

“Thank you for taking care of my son,” he told her when she came out again. He looked right into her brown eyes. She averted his gaze and blushed.

“Thanks,” she mumbled. She stood looking at her feet for a moment, then looked back up into his eyes and added, “After a day or two you should bring him back so I can change his bandages.”

They stared at each other like that for awhile. He stood more than a foot taller than her. Next to him she looked tiny and vulnerable, but in her eyes he saw great courage and great sadness, a deep well that went farther than the endless night sky.

“I don't ever see you at feasts,” he said finally. She scoffed, fell back against the wall of her grandfather's house, and resumed drying her jar with a rag.

“That's because I don't go,” she said to her jar. She smiled a bitter smile, “Grandfather stopped trying to get me to go years ago. I think he finally realized it's in everybody's best interest.”

She finished drying her jar and let her hands fall to her side, rag in one jar in the other. She looked curiously back up at Raven. She could smell his sweat in the midday heat, and she cocked her eyebrow to ask him why he cared. A lock of her dreads fell over her wide forehead. Her flirtations reminded him of her reputation and he looked away, even as he couldn't help but find her alluring.

“Everyone else goes. Maybe it would help you fit in better,” he tried to be nice. She stared off into the middle distance and quietly said, “Yeah.”

They stood that way for a minute longer, staring into nothing in particular before Raven gathered up his son and said, “I will return in a day or two.”

She didn't say anything. In an instant she was beside him, and gripping the jar with her teeth she made a sling for the boy's arm out of the rag she was using. Standing so close to Raven he could smell her, a sickly sweet smell like dying flowers. She smiled at him when she was done and he thanked her again, this time stumbling on his words with a new-found nervousness. She sashayed back into her grandfather's house and he stood confused for a moment before walking away.

For the rest of the day he couldn't get her out of his mind. He awoke the next morning thinking of her. He thought of the looks she gave him, of the way she moved her body, of the way she smelled. None of these things were new to him. In fact, nearly four years ago, just as she was beginning to blossom, she had clumsily attempted to seduce him with childish technique that worked on quite a few of his peers. She was just jealous of other girls who had been given the right to marry, and Raven politely deferred to help her with her jealousy.

This was different, though. She was no longer petulant and ill-mannered. She had a place in the tribe and, even if she wasn't always successful, she did contribute. She was no longer the angry, spoiled brat who took it out on others when she didn't get her way. She wasn't quite a woman (she would never be a woman, not according to the tribe anyway) but she had matured.

He waited a day before he took his son back to see her. The boy seemed to be recovering, although he wasn't happy at how limiting a broken arm was. He sobbed when his father told him he couldn't play so rough with the other boys, and that he wouldn't be going on hunts until his arm was fixed, but Raven put his foot down. The next day the boy was equally unhappy to be going back to the healer, but secretly Raven was eager to talk to her again, for the opportunity to try and solve the enigma of her being.

She had been thinking about him, too. She also remembered her unsuccessful seduction years before, but only after he left. She was scrubbing her expensive stone table, trying not to think of how big his arms were when it came to her without warning. Immediately she was awash with embarrassment, but she suppressed it quickly. That was in the past. She never liked thinking about the past. Most of her memories were bad, and the ones that were good weren't good enough to suffer the bad ones, and so she just let them all go. Instead, she lived in the present, but planned for the future.

The night of the day Raven came to visit her she repeated the same routine. She gathered all her belongings in a canvas sack, before putting them back where she found them. The man she was sleeping with that night was young, younger than she was. He was flighty, and temperamental, but he made her feel in control and she liked that. It had been easy to seduce him, she merely found him by himself and invited him back to her grandfather's house when her grandfather was out. They were worlds apart in bed, and their sex would only last between a minute and three minutes. She never came with him. That didn't matter to her. She'd been with plenty of more experienced men who couldn't make her climax, either. He was less a lover and more her play-toy. While sleeping with him was unsatisfying physically, she derived more than enough satisfaction knowing that while he had all the power over his young wife she had all the power over him. She'd even managed to convince him to give her cunnilingus, something the older men of the tribe considered deeply degrading and staunchly refused to perform. By the time she was finished playing around with her boy that night, she'd forgotten all about her embarrassing history with Raven.

When she awoke the next day in the room she once shared with her brother, she wondered if Raven and his son would visit. There was a chance he'd never come back, if he considered the treatment she'd given his son good enough as it was. She hoped he'd return, although she couldn't quite lie to herself about why. Getting the bandages back so she could clean and re-use them would be helpful, certainly, and she wanted to provide good medical care, definitely, but deep down she really just wanted to see Raven again, to be near him. He had a hold on her she couldn't put into words.

The day after he came to see her with his son passed without note. She ate in the morning with her grandfather as she did every morning, neither of them speaking while they ate gecko egg and drank black coffee boiled from coyote tobacco. Her grandfather left the house to convene with the other elders and lead a war band to capture slaves for the Legion. She made a few half-assed overtures to clean up the front room of the house, then made salve out of the herbs she gathered the day before. For most of the day she sat around doing nothing, occasionally reading but mostly relaxing and trying not to think about Raven. Even that night as she had another liaison with her toy in the darkness on the edge of the village she thought about Raven and the way he towered over her.

He returned the next day, and she did her best to hide her excitement. He brought his son again, who needed his bandages changed, as they were starting to smell funny. The boy was sullen and withdrawn around her, blaming her for his broken arm and its subsequent restrictions, but she was all smiles to him. Her cheer and optimism got the better of him and he lightened up, but she was actually sublimating her joy at spending a little more time with his father. Raven couldn't help but be excited to spend time with her, too, as much as he wished it weren't so. Ever since he'd taken their son to see her his wife was distant. There wasn't a single repercussion he'd face for stepping out on her, and she was well aware, but powerless to stop it. He couldn't understand her anger at her powerlessness, and thought she was pushing him away. After spending two nights with Patricia sullen and withdrawn he was all the more vulnerable to her charms.

“Thank you for returning the bandages,” she said to him in a professional and courteous way after she redressed his son.

“It's no problem,” he said diplomatically, “I understand it's hard for you to get good medical supplies?”

“It's not that war parties don't make it a priority, there just isn't much to go around in the badlands,” she explained, “I guess everything was mostly used up years ago, when the tribes were new.”

“They must have thought it was going to last forever,” Raven speculated. She nodded in thoughtful assent. She sidled up to him sneakily and caressed his arm while speaking to his wide chest.

“Isn't that how it always is? No-one thinks about the future,” she said, flashing him a big smile, “all everybody thinks about is now.”

Their breathing was in sync, heavy animal breaths. She bit her lip and flashed him a look. He wanted to grab her and kiss her right there, he wanted to throw her down and fuck her with abandon right in the center of the village. She wanted him to, she was flush with anticipation. Their hearts raced, their blood boiled, and their visions blurred until all else faded away and it was only them, just them and their lust for each other's bodies. They both stepped back and took a breath, regained their composure. Her head was spinning and his hands were shaking.

“Maybe... maybe we should all think about the future more,” Raven said. He ran his fingers through his dreadlocks. She bounced on her heels and clasped her hands behind her back, sticking her chest out and biting her lip.

“Sometimes I go down to the river at night, and I stare out over the water and think about things. There's a little beach, just down the shoreline past the old bus? It's a great place to get some privacy,” she indicated with her head, “Y'know, to think.”

“I may have to check it out sometime,” Raven couldn't contain his smile, “it's hard to find a good place to think.”

Later that night they met at the beach. She was there first. When she was younger, the beach was a place of special significance to her, a refuge when she felt sad or alone. In all of the affairs she'd carried out in the past four years she hadn't invited any of them there. Despite how perfect it was for carrying out illicit relations, she kept the place hers and hers alone until Raven. Somehow, it just felt right. She thought there was a special connection between them, and after he arrived and they embraced she was proven right.

The Twisted Hairs were the dominant tribe in the region. What Dry Wells didn't provide the Twisted Hairs took, and they kept large numbers to maintain their power. There were more men in the tribe than some tribes had members, and she had fornicated with most of them. They were all different in the ways they fucked. Some were slow and deliberate, some were fast, some had brought her to climax and most had not. She didn't regret the sex she'd had, but all of it paled in comparison to that night at the beach. Never before had her body been so in sync with another body during the act. She'd had sex plenty of times by that point, on a nightly basis, even, but never before had she made love. When they were finished, he cut off one of his dreadlocks, removed the ornaments, and wove them into one of her own like the men before him.

They were together for hours but neither of them realized it. It was practically dawn by the time they went back to the village, still glowing from their tryst. At the edge they kissed deeply and passionately before separating and returning to their respective homes. She skipped on the way back to her grandfather's house.

Within the day everyone in the tribe knew of the affair, that he had finally succumbed to her charms and she had successfully scored another notch in her bedpost (metaphorically). Patricia found herself among a support network of other tribal women with unfaithful husbands, all of them bonded in their hatred of the healer and seductress. Raven, meanwhile, found himself uncomfortable among a back-patting and ego-stroking boy's club, unable to express how different it was when he made love to her, how special their bond was and how unlike the rest of her relationships with these men it was. Her grandfather expressed disappointment in her new relationship, as he'd been disappointed in all her relationships since she first started sleeping around.

“Sha Raven is a good man,” he told her over his morning coffee. It was all he said to her all day.

They continued their affair that night. Both of them spent the day away from each other, Raven went hunting with his friends and she stayed inside all day, not eager to absorb all the scorn that waited for her amid the women of the tribe. They both spent the entire day in anticipation of another encounter, just waiting until they could once again find each other on the beach. When they did it was much the same as the first time, a long passionate night full of declarations of love and tender embraces.

As the affair progressed they grew more bold. They snuck kisses during the day, occasionally he would grope her when no one was looking. Once, he brought his son to get his bandages removed (except from the arm that was still broken) and he sent the boy home alone while he made passionate love to her in her grandfather's house during the middle of the day.

“The war party had a big victory today,” he told her one night, after a session of lovemaking. They were on the beach again, this time with a blanket and a fire. Raven even brought some wine to drink. It was like a real date, like something she read in a book she traded away for one-hundred and eighty pages of a medical textbook she got from a traveling merchant in the village center.

“The plan is to have a big feast tomorrow. The whole tribe will be there,” he continued after he kissed her tenderly on the lips. She nuzzled up against his chest.

“You should come,” he proposed hesitantly, nervous to suggest it. Her estrangement from the tribe was a sore spot between them, and when he brought it up it was the closest they ever came to fighting. He only had her best interest at heart, or at least what he thought was in her best interest. When they talked it wasn't like talking to his wife, she wouldn't simply obey him because they were married. Sometimes he felt more like he was talking to another man, the way she held different opinions and defended them. He didn't mind, though. Their relationship was different from marriage and so he expected their interactions to be different from his and Patricia's.

She didn't answer him immediately and he felt her tense up in his arms. She knew he was just trying to be nice, but he didn't understand. He didn't know- no one knew- that she was still packing up all her things every night, still trying to leave. It was harder since they'd started their nightly rendezvous, but she was still doing it. He'd never understand how she felt with their people, how it felt to not belong.

“Okay,” she whispered, small and frightened into his chest. She closed her eyes and fell asleep and when she awoke he was gone. The Colorado churned in the early morning, and fog hid the world outside the beach.

She walked home wrapped in the blanket he'd left, staring at her feet the whole way back to her grandfather's house. No one in the village was awake except for the guards, who didn't notice and didn't care as she walked past. She went home and slept. The feast was scheduled for evening, as the sun set and the night sky overtook the day sky. She planned to sleep until then, but a visitor came.

A young girl who she didn't know very well came to the front door of her grandfather's house just after midday. The girl had been in pain for quite some time, but hadn't braved a visit to the healer until she discovered that she was bleeding from her vagina. She didn't know what was happening, and had no one to turn to except for her.

“You're... Erica, right?” she asked in a bleary haze, awoken by the afternoon heat to find the girl standing in the front door scared and alone.

“Desert Flower, actually,” the girl said, “Erica is my sister.”

“Need something?” she asked irritably. Desert Flower nodded her head vigorously and she beckoned her to come inside, “What seems to be the trouble?”

“I, uh, I,” Desert Flower stammered.

She softened and smiled reassuringly at the girl, “It's alright, take your time. Do you have any pain anywhere?”

“Yes, here,” the young girl responded. She gestured to her midriff.

“Have you eaten anything strange recently, some old meat or something from a dented can?” she asked. The girl nodded her head no.

“I uh, I...” Desert Flower stammered. She finally blurted out, “I'm bleeding!” and lifted her dress to show the blood that smeared her thighs.

She grimaced involuntarily. The girl saw her expression and began to panic.

“No, no, it's fine,” she reassured her.

“You've become a woman,” she added morosely. The girl realized why that might make the healer sad. Here she was, only eleven years old and already at the first step to being married, while the healer would languish in spinsterhood until she was old and forgotten. The girl felt ashamed for unwittingly rubbing it in her face.

“I'm sorry,” Desert Flower whispered. Both of them stared at the floor.

“No, I'm sorry,” she whispered sorrowfully in reply, “You should... you should tell your father. He will help you get ready for the ritual.”

She helped the girl clean herself up then handed her some bandages to wrap herself in and sent her on her way. She stood in the doorway and watched her leave, hugging herself and silently reciting prayers for all the young women of the tribe.

She started her nightly ritual after her grandfather left for the feast, but stopped before packing her tinctures. She could hear the sounds of the celebration in the central circle from her room. Children were laughing and playing, adults talked and joked with each other. A woman shrieked with laughter. She stood alone in the dim light of the room she once shared with her brother, once again at the precipice. She grabbed her canvas bag, turned it upside down and furiously shook its contents out onto her bed. She put makeup on her face, made sure she looked good in her mirror, then strode purposefully out of her grandfather's house.

At the edge of the light from the feast she stopped. She watched her tribes-people relax and celebrate. Men boasted to each other and women cooked and laid out the meal. She could see Raven and she smiled. He was talking to the other men, gesturing emphatically about some martial conquest. When the men he was talking to brushed his story off, he laughed and made his way over to his wife, who was pounding out some bighorner meat to be grilled. He came up behind her and wrapped his arm around her waist and kissed her on the cheek. She smiled, then caressed his face and kissed him back.

As she watched her smile disappeared. She saw his son, disobeying orders to play gentle, chasing another boy in and out of small gatherings of adults. She saw Desert Flower, no longer scared but excited, telling her friends how she was to be married soon, not knowing what that really meant. In the darkness she watched them all. She felt heartbroken and betrayed, even as she knew there was no one to blame but herself. Her childish delusions of her great romance with Raven were shattered, she realized whatever they had it wasn't love. He already had plenty of love in his life. They all did. Silent tears streamed down her face as she turned around and began to walk, not stopping even as she left the village far behind. Many years later, she would remark to herself how funny it was what was important to her back then.


	61. Pitch, Rust, and Broke Glass

Pitch, Rust, and Broke Glass

She left home with nothing but her nice dress and her good knife. She walked in the dark for hours, straying farther from Dry Wells than she'd ever been before. After awhile, she stopped at the edge of the river, and looked at her reflection in the moonlight. She was still wearing the makeup she'd put on to attend the feast, although it was smeared by her tears. When she saw herself with her makeup and her dreadlocks she was filled with revulsion. She let herself fall into the river, let the cold black water envelope her, felt the makeup wash off. She swam out into the middle and floated there on her back, the fine fabric of her best dress clung to her small body. She stared up into the night sky.

For the next few days she kept close to the Colorado out of necessity, following it north on the eastern shore and avoiding 'lurks and whatever else fresh water attracted. She ate whatever she could scavenge, mostly pinto beans and banana yucca. She didn't bother to hunt as she didn't feel safe building a fire. She had some survival skills, but she was the farthest she'd ever been from home and all alone. She felt more vulnerable than she'd ever felt in her life, but she also felt more free. The struggle to survive day-to-day liberated her.

After a week of walking she came across the cracked remains of a parking lot for a boat pier. She was scared of tinnitus, but she was newly emboldened by her independence and curious to examine the rusted shells of cars and boats. She tore the hem and waist off of her dress and wrapped them around her feet, then gingerly set out across the blistered pavement, making an effort to be as stealthy as possible in case the ruins held any surprises. She approached a four-door Chryslus Corvega with a boat hitched to it first. As she got closer she couldn't believe how huge it was. It looked like a slain beast, its corpse left to rot in the post-nuclear sun.

She found a rotted briefcase in the trunk, but it was full of men's clothes. A full suit and tie, some relax wear including a sweater vest, and fishing clothes including waders that couldn't possibly fit her small frame no matter how much she coveted the thick soles. She did put on the over-sized fisherman's hat, figuring any relief from the sun couldn't hurt, but removed the lures and hooks from the band. She left all the other clothes in the remains of the briefcase. In the boat behind the car there was nothing of value.

There were seven more rusted husks in the parking lot, seven more bleaching bones of once-great beasts. She gingerly searched them all one by one, but found much the same in each. There were no useful supplies, no medical kits or non-perishable foodstuffs, no weapons of any kind, not even a tire iron. Although in a small trailer attached to one car she found a sizable collection of pre-war women's clothing, all of the dresses were several sizes too large. She didn't bother putting on the lady's sun hat she found, preferring the more modest fishing hat.

She finished searching the last car (which contained nothing but the skeleton of its former owner) and scrambled cautiously out of the parking lot and onto some nearby rocks. She squatted on a rock and pouted, looking over the remains of a once-great civilization and privately thought _so what_. These people had so much in their time, but in the end it amounted to so little. Most of them died in their behemoth cars, surrounded by their useless knickknacks and leisure sport equipment. Their lives had been meaningless, and they couldn't even be helpful in death. Pre-war people were selfish, she reasoned. She was about to get up and continue on her way when she noticed past the parking lot closer to the river were a few squat blue boxes. Cabins.

She had much more luck in the fishing cabins. The first was full of the smell of stale death and skeletons, but the second had a full medkit with bandages, gauze, disinfectant, and the rarest treasure, two stimpacks still in their sterile wrapping. The third was the real jackpot. She didn't know what the small cabin was used for before the bombs fell, but she guessed it was either the house of a maniac or a hideaway for criminals. The floor was covered in hundreds of leather boots. All different sizes, all different styles, almost none of them paired up. She felt richer than she'd ever felt in her life. She sat in the cabin for hours, trying to find the perfect pair of boots. Four hours went by before she found a boot that fit her right foot perfectly, but for her left she had to settle for a boot that was a little too big. It fit fine when she wrapped her foot in the bandages she'd just found. In the closet was a similarly question-inspiring amount of leather coats, including one meant for a woman of her slender build. She was about to explore the next cabin when she discovered she wasn't the only person around.

Three people, two men and a woman returned from a hunt just as she opened the fourth cabin's door. As soon as she heard them approach she ducked in and shut the door quietly. She scanned the dark room and realized she made a terrible mistake. Scattered throughout were obvious signs of habitation, including recently-used needles. Growing up she'd been taught that drug use went hand-in-hand with violent, dangerous and unpredictable behavior. Right at that moment she hoped those warnings were exaggerated. One of the men was talking loud enough to his companions that she could hear him through the door.

“I was sure she was there,” she could just barely make out. Someone else said something to the man but she couldn't hear it properly.

“Well then next time you talk to him!” the man protested loud enough to be perfectly audible to her, “Anyway, we can try again tomorrow. She can't have gone far.”

The voices grew louder and she realized they were fast approaching her cabin. In the dim light she searched for a place to hide, and settled for the closet. She hoped they wouldn't notice the closet was closed even though it was open when they left. Just as she slid the thin wooden door shut the front door burst open, and the smell of shit and leather announced the presence of the cabin's occupant. From the footsteps she guessed it was the woman. She walked into the cabin, sighed irritably, then returned to the door and screamed, “And next time bring the lift!”

“Gotta let it charge!” one of the men yelled back, and the woman made an irritated noise then slammed the door shut. She swore under her breath then dropped to the mattress on the floor and (judging by the sounds made) took off her boots and threw them at the wall. They hit the wall with a thud each and the woman swore under her breath again. Her stench was terrible. She smelled like shit and leather, and her feet liberated from her shoes smelled atrocious, like rancid meat. In the closet it was all she could do to keep from retching from the smell. She heard the woman on the bed take off her jacket, and she could smell her air out her armpits, which somehow smelled even worse than her feet. The woman shot up, the pressurized hiss of the psycho plunger the only sound in the cabin for a moment before she gurgled and belched contentedly. She swore again, this time much louder. She took off her belt and, judging by the wet smacking sounds and her jagged, labored breathing, began to masturbate furiously. In the closet, the girl with no name stifled laughter. She was truly, deeply afraid, and the horror of her situation seemed so incredibly, bizarrely funny.

The woman loudly finished, then lay on the bed for an interminable amount of time before buckling her pants back up, putting her boots back on, and leaving the cabin. She waited until she felt that it was absolutely safe to leave the closet, then with trepidation slowly opened the door and examined her surroundings. Day turned to night while she hid. The woman left the cabin door open, and past it she could see they'd started a large fire and were gathered around it. She was in an unusual position, at risk to be discovered and possibly murdered (possibly worse than murdered), but she had the upper hand. They let their guard down around her, and she couldn't help but take advantage of the opportunity.

First she examined the woman's cabin more thoroughly. She found a stash of ammunition of all different types, mostly nine millimeter bullets, which she recognized as they were quite common among the warriors of her former tribe and in the southwest wasteland in general. Most were from Gun Runners making long shipments, or from Gun Runner shipments ambushed by raiders fleeing east. Or so she'd heard. In any case, she doubted these bullets were bought. She put them in her jacket pockets. In the broken refrigerator she found the woman's stash of drugs, mostly psycho but also some steroids and liquor. In a cabinet she found some dried meat, which was the only thing she ate all day. She didn't find any weapons, so she quietly slipped out of the cabin into the darkness.

She skulked on the edge of their fire, just past the light. She finally got a good look at them, two men and one woman. One man was tall, at least as tall as Raven, but thin and sickly looking. He had a long chin strip goatee and shaggy hair, and glinting in the firelight she could see the revolver on his hip, as long and thin as him. The other man was short, but wider. She couldn't see his face, but he clenched a machete tight in his fist. He was the loud one, speaking again but away from her so she couldn't quite make out what he was saying. With each word he swung the machete in front of him and with his other hand gestured broadly. The woman was shorter still and stocky. Not fat, but built in a masculine way. Her short hair accentuated her manliness. Something about the way all three of them held themselves led her to assume they were all related, perhaps siblings. She slipped past them unobserved to the next cabin, which she entered silently and carefully.

In the corner a dim electric light shined. A small counter that was covered in old junk food boxes in the woman's house instead sat an intricate and beautiful statue made of welded scrap metal. It had a rudimentary human shape composed of helices. It was almost charming but for the fact that she couldn't believe it was created by one of the people just outside. The whole cabin was filled with similar artworks, some dangling from the ceiling by fishing wire, all of them bathed in the pale light. She crept around the room, carefully avoiding disturbing any of them. There wasn't much else in the cabin. In a metal case she unlocked with a bobby pin there was a collection of even more scrap metal, good pieces that had very little rust and wear. In the bottom of the cabin's refrigerator was the torch used to make the art, and the rest of the refrigerator was filled with bottles of water, soda, and beer. The closet was full of more artwork. She left without taking anything.

They were still gathered around the fire, carousing and drinking, waiting for a whole bighorner to cook over the fire. She wondered if any one of them was the artist. None of them looked particularly inspired by a muse. They all looked lean and cruel, like starving dogs. They had calmed down, the short man was still clutching his machete but he was no longer gesturing with it. They were all sitting down on old plastic lawnchairs. She didn't even bother to skulk around. They didn't pay attention to anything but the fire. She wondered how they'd survived for so long.

The next cabin was the second-to-last cabin in the entire campground. Unlike the others, it was locked, but she had the same bobby pin from before and cracked it open without much effort. Although, even she, standing at barely five feet tall and weighing less than one-hundred and ten pounds, could simply kick the door in, it was so old and of such poor quality.

The inside of the cabin was dark, but her eyes adjusted quickly. She grew up with a preternatural ability to see in the dark, something she'd never really appreciated until she found herself in life-or-death circumstances. In the dark of the cabin she saw mostly garbage, trash made up of old food containers, rags, and pieces of paper. The whole place smelled like an animal gave birth in it, a smell so thick it was practically solid. When she slipped in and quietly shut the door behind her she gagged, and her eyes adjusted to the dark before she adjusted to the smell. The floor was covered in a layer of dirty clothes, as was a military cot. As she explored she discovered the likely source of the smell- unlike in the other cabins, whichever of the men who was living in this one used the no-longer working toilet, to the extent that it overflowed with human waste. A small dam of old jeans and sweaters had been erected on the floor so as to prevent the feces from flooding the entire surface.

She was loathe to search the room, but compelled by the thrill. At any moment she might be discovered by the cabin's occupant, and kept one eye on the door accordingly. She was grateful for her new leather boots, as her first step into the festering squalor was onto a glass syringe that burst under her heel in spite of her delicate tread. She said a silent prayer to her footwear and made her way over to the cot. Underneath it she found a rusting metal footlocker that was unlocked, but she couldn't slide it out past the layer of dirty clothes. Whatever was in the footlocker was too heavy for her to lift up and pull out without more traction. Removing the footlocker was too risky so she continued to the refrigerator, and found it more rewarding anyway. Inside she found an M3 submachine gun, the kind of weapon her grandfather called a grease gun. It seemed to be in decent shape, and next to it on the fridge's wire rack were three clips, although two were half-empty. Also in the fridge were three fragmentation grenades and parts of what she assumed was a six-chambered revolver. A few small energy cells were scattered throughout the shelves, but she'd never seen energy weapons in her life and didn't know what they were. She loaded the full clip into the gun and stashed the others and the frag grenades in her jacket. She slung the grease gun's leather strap over her shoulder and carefully made her way back to the door, which opened just as she reached it.

Standing in front of her was the tall man, who didn't notice her fast enough to react before she buried her knife up under his ribcage and directly into his heart. She leaped up and kissed him on the mouth as she did so to prevent him from screaming a warning to his companions and pulled him into the cabin. He hardly struggled at all, and she could feel the life drain from his lips. She closed the door behind him as his corpse slumped onto her, then she let it fall to the floor, the clothing muffling the thud. She smirked triumphantly at the body, relishing her flawless execution as she wiped her knife clean on his jean jacket, the only part of his outfit that wasn't as filthy as the rest of the apparel that littered his floor. She noted with derision that even though she'd spent a week wandering with nothing by herself she still found time to keep her clothes reasonably clean. She searched his body and narrowly missed pricking herself on a syringe full of psycho in his breast pocket, pulling her hand away from the side of the needle like it was red-hot. She patted down the outside of the rest of his pockets, and found some ammunition for the gun at his hip and the key to the cabin. She removed the gun belt from around his waist and wrapped it around her own without examining it, then quietly opened the door and peered through.

The surviving man and the woman didn't seem to notice what happened. They were still sitting around the fire, the girl drinking a beer and the short man eating a piece of meat with his hands, machete on the ground by his chair. She slipped through the door and silently approached the fire, stopping close enough to hear them but far enough that she was just two points of light in the darkness, the reflection of the fire in her eyes.

“We should probably move along, soon,” the woman said after two beats of silence. She leaned in close to the short man and looked him in the eye as she said it, searching. It sounded like something she could only suggest without the tall man around. The short man thoughtfully chewed his meat for a minute, then drank a mouthful of his own warm, stale beer.

“Pitch wants this girl. Says it'll be a big score,” he said.

“I get that. But afterwards...” the woman pleaded. The short man stared into the fire.

“She's a good lookin' girl. All alone. Young. We bag her, sell her to the bulls, we'll be in enough gold to go wherever,” he drank from his bottle again, “head to Reno. Kill ourselves with drugs and booze and whores...” he trailed off.

The woman glanced back at Pitch's cabin. She moved her chair closer to the short man. She spoke quieter, so that in the darkness their unseen guest struggled to hear her, “She's one of those Twisted Hair niggers. We ain't been here long, but long enough to know not to mess with one of them.”

She realized they were talking about her. The short man looked at the woman stone-faced.

“That's why she's worth more. We get her, they pay us, we get out. Pitch'll understand that,” he finished just as she fired the grease gun.

A wild spray of bullets struck the short man from the side, through sheer chance hitting him in the temple. The woman jumped out of her seat and spun around with a small revolver in her hand but she turned the submachine gun on her too fast, the wild spray mostly missing but a few struck her in the chest, knocking her back into the fire. The woman discovered that the fire that cooked a bighorner easily cooked her and she screamed.

The submachine gun ran out of bullets, but she held the trigger down so that the staccato click-click-click accompanied the pained screams of the woman being cooked alive. She had never fired a gun before, and was overwhelmed at how easy it was. She didn't realize her gun wasn't firing anything until the small pistol the woman dropped in the fire began to discharge because of the heat. The loud pop each bullet made as it exploded in its chamber caused her to drop the grease gun and take cover. Six bangs and then no noise but the crackle of the fire.

The woman dragged herself out slowly, her leather clothes burned into her blistering skin. She crawled on her hands and knees, only to look up and see Pitch's silver pistol pointed right at her, and just beyond it two shinning eyes and a wide smile illuminated in the dark. One final bang splintered the night air.

She picked up the submachine gun and slung it over her shoulder again. She patted down the short man and found nothing but a switchblade, a pair of leather gloves, and some banana yucca fruit. Blood poured in a thick stream from the hole she'd made in his head, and his eyes were open and glazed. She examined the gloves, noted the scorch marks on each tip of the left glove's fingers. She put the gloves on her own hands and closed the short man's eyes.

She returned to Pitch's cabin and lifted the cot noisily off the metal trunk. She flipped open the lid. Inside was mostly garbage, old junk food and drugs, but on top was a brown leather bag she opened to find aureus and denarius, a decent amount of Legion coin. She tucked the bag under her arm and headed away from the cabins at a rapid pace. After an hour of walking she sat down next to the Colorado and used her knife to chop off her dreadlocks one by one.


	62. Really

Really

For the next eight days she continued up the Colorado. Along the shore was an unlimited number of empty soda bottles half buried in sand, and as she traveled she picked them up. When she could she lined them up on old stones and shot them. She couldn't bring herself to fire on any living creatures, since nothing threatened her and she couldn't shoot something that wasn't a threat. She still wasn't eating meat, she wasn't in a position to effectively capitalize on a good kill and anything less than using every part of an animal wasn't worth it. It was something her grandfather taught her, a high-minded ideal he couldn't commit to, but stuck with her.

In eight days she murdered more than one hundred empty soda bottles, though. In the process she expended more than one hundred bullets. By day eight she only had six bullets left for her revolver, a single cylinder. She still had three full clips for her submachine gun, but the first time she felt threatened she reached for the revolver first. It was a reflex she'd trained into herself because she loved the way it felt when she drew the gun. All up the river she practiced quick drawing. Obsessed with the perfect shot, she failed to notice she wasn't alone until she heard from behind her someone say, “Hi.”

She drew her pistol and spun around lightening-quick, brought it to aim at the unfamiliar voice and stopped dead with awe. She couldn't tell if what she was looking at was a person or a robot, but she did know it was wearing a dirty brown duster. Its face was made of metal and its eyes were solid red. It had a low, menacing forehead below a completely round and hairless cranium. Instead of a mouth or nose it had a big disk like a wheel, another wheel on its cheek, and a cable like a snake bit into its other cheek. Its chest was smooth and black with seams made to look like a broad and muscular human chest. On its back was a beautiful and well-maintained lever-action rifle. It stood immense and powerful, like a legend come to life. She lowered her gun and mouthed, “whoa.”

The thing tilted its head inquisitively, not the slightest bit intimidated despite staring down the barrel of her gun.

“What are you doing out here all alone?” it asked her. She was too shocked to respond.

“Are you a tribal?” it pressed, “What's your name?”

“Uh,” she struggled to think of a name that wouldn't immediately mark her as Twisted Hair, something that a caravaneer would name their daughter, a name meant for someone from society, “Uh... Julia. My name is Julia.”

“Ah,” it said. It ambled up to her calmly, offering her one hand while taking off its helmet with the other, “My name is Really. Really Glenn.”

Underneath the intimidating helmet was a woman in her early thirties with short black hair. She gave a lopsided grin to Julia as she shook her hand, “You're pretty quick on the draw, there. You a gunslinger?”

Julia stood for a moment and processed the words. When Really was next to her she realized she wasn't forty feet tall, but was roughly her height, give or take a few inches.

“Oh, uh, no. In fact, I've only had this gun for a week,” as she uncomfortably chewed the first words she'd ever spoken in English, she could tell her tribal accent was unmistakable. Compared to Really's pronunciation she sounded like a child. She blushed with embarrassment.

“Okay, now I know you're tribal,” they stopped shaking hands and Really sat down on a rock. She pulled out a canteen and took a drink, then offered it to Julia, who accepted to discover it was water, “Which one you from? You're not Bil Hinishnaanli are you? English is a little too good for them.”

“I'm not... any tribe,” Julia answered her, “I resold my tribe. I... I didn't belong.”

Really accepted her canteen back and looked her over. She pursed her lips and apologized, “I'm sorry to hear that.”

“My tribe is called the desert rangers. We patrol pretty much the whole Mojave and then some, alone or in groups. We, y'know, try to keep the peace, I guess,” she shrugged, “If you want, you can tag along with me. I dunno if you're going anywhere but I'd be more than happy to have the company.”

“I uh, I don't, uh... I don't want to slow you down...” Julia fiddled with her pistol. Six bullets, in her hands not much use in a firefight.

“Well,” Really said, “I'm going to level with you. We've actually been traveling together for two days. You just weren't aware of it.”

Really smiled her crooked smile apologetically. That was how they joined up. Julia wandered without a destination for more than two weeks, so she was perfectly content to follow Really wherever she was going. Along the way Really told her how she came to be a desert ranger.

“I was born in Nipton and I grew up there,” she explained as they climbed over rocks, “Nipton's a little north and way more west, like, California west. It's a pretty alright place for a lady if you're cool having sex for money like my mom was, but when my little brother got kidnapped by Vipers I figured, hey, alright, good a chance as any to skip town. Tracked 'em for awhile, caught up and turns out they kidnapped my brother 'cause a lot of 'em got killed by NCR and they needed new members. But, he died, 'cause the ritual to join is eating a buncha snake poison. Anyways, I wasn't doing anything, so I did the ritual and became a member, which was alright. Did drugs, led raids, killed the leader and became the new leader. Ran wild in the Mojave for awhile, but then these guys, the desert rangers, they were killing a bunch of my guys, so we had a big meeting with 'em, they offered to let me join. They seemed alright, I said yes, that's why I'm not known as Queen Cobra anymore. For the best, anyway. I prefer Really.”

Spending time with Really was a revelation. The desert ranger didn't seem to care about anything. She was never scared. When they made camp, she didn't bother making sure they were safe, she was never on guard, and she was always smiling and happy. She never held back and she never worried. The more unabashedly open she was the more Julia was open with her.

“I learned very young how to read English,” the girl who named herself admitted one night, “But I didn't learn to hear it or speak it until a couple of years ago.”

She'd spent her entire life being completely closed off, perpetually paranoid that anything she told anyone would be used against her, that even the most benign revelation would somehow be twisted into a weapon by the person she trusted it with, that her life was comprised of vulnerabilities she needed to ardently guard. She'd always assumed that everyone she knew was a coyote on the periphery, licking their lips and eager to pounce when the opportunity arose. Yet, even as she told Really the things she never told anyone before, she realized that they weren't secrets worth keeping. The little personal details didn't compromise her or make her vulnerable like she always thought they would. The realization only spurred her to reveal more.

“Once we established relations with the Legion more traders came to Dry Wells,” she explained in her accent, “I learned to speak and understand English listening to them.”

Whenever she mentioned Caesar's Legion Really was particularly intrigued. Julia didn't have much to say about them, though. When she was among the tribe there weren't a lot of things she was happy to be excluded from, but dealing with the Legion was first and foremost among them. She was perfectly happy to leave those psychopaths to the tribe leaders, just as she was perfectly content to leave the Legion behind as she made her way to her new life. She never noticed that the Legion was the only thing that ever made Really concerned.

“We need to go kill someone!” Really smiled and ran in the direction of the first gunshots they heard. Really scrambled up embankments and through narrow passageways with practiced deftness. Julia struggled to keep up, pistol in hand and submachine gun knocking at her hip, nothing she had half as heavy as the armor Really wore.

The gunshots kept up and they tracked down the source, a gunfight between two groups of raiders, Jackals and Really's Vipers. With her brush gun Really killed all of them, sizing them up and sniping so fast they didn't have enough time to realize there was an interloper in their conflict. Julia wasn't fast enough to fire off a single shot before Really took them out.

Six Jackals and five Vipers, although they were dead too fast to identify them when they were living. Killing them only took Really twelve shots. After they examined the bodies and realized who they were, Julia tried to show some sympathy to her friend. She would be horrified if she killed someone only to find out afterwards that she shared a heritage with them, and assumed Really would feel the same. Really did not.

“Trust me, Jules, they're better off this way,” she smirked, “If anything, we did these poor fucks a favor.”

Julia hesitantly asked her if she knew them. Really laughed.

“Ha! Oh no, of course not,” she chuckled and picked a corpse up by the collar and examined it, “Pssh. Nope. Dunno if they were even part of my crew when I was running. Probably some kinda late-comers on shit detail. Chumps went down so easy, wouldn't surprise me if they usedta be vault-dwellers or something. Buncha pussies.”

“That's, uh, that's horrifying,” Julia stammered. Really shrugged.

“Raider life is different from regular life. Lot cheaper. Part of the deal,” she said, “They know how it is.”

“What's the advantage?” Julia asked, “How could it be worth it?”

Really took a deep breath and sucked her teeth. Usually when her new friend asked her a question she had an answer right away, but she had to think about this one, “Well, drugs, especially. I mean, I dunno your exposure, but drugs are pretty rad, and Vipers got specially good ones... But, it's kinda more than that. It's... it's a special kind of freedom.”

She chewed her lip and thought hard before continuing, “People, y'see, they always got this, kinda, like, preservation instinct. Y'know? People are obliged to keep going, to keep doing stuff even though, like, they don't really have a reason. Like, nothing they've ever done is really important, so why is it so important that they gotta keep acting this certain way, like they have a right to be here, y'know? I guess it's a kind of freedom from always trying to keep yourself alive. I guess I can't really explain it... Sorry. Just know that these people don't feel bad and neither should you.”

Julia wasn't satisfied with her answer. She mulled it over as they scavenged two N99 pistols in poor condition, a couple of .22 pistols that looked a little better, and some ammo. They looked to see if anyone was wearing matching boots that would fit Julia's feet, but they had no such luck. As they left, Julia brought the topic up again.

“Okay, so, being a raider means freedom from self-preservation?” she asked. Really groaned.

“Yeah, but- no!” she spun around and marched backwards as she explained, “Okay, lemme explain it to you... um, let's see. You're a tribal? Right? Well, whatever, hasn't your whole life been about survival? Pretty much everything you do is, like, through that lens. Every choice has gotta be about whether or not it'll help you get by.”

She ran her fingers through her hair and reached out for confirmation. Julia nodded her head.

“Well? Wouldn't it be great to not have to worry about that? To do shit and not be scared about whether or not you're gonna get by?” she threw her hands up, “It's freeing! The downside is, yeah, your chance of dying goes, like, way way up, but it isn't like they don't know it. To them, it's worth it.”

“I guess I never really thought about it before,” Julia said, “It makes sense, though.”

“Yeah, you know something about rebellion, huh?” she turned back around, “It always costs somethin'.”

“Everything costs something,” Julia mumbled. Really didn't notice.

All up the Colorado Julia spoke infrequently, parceling out bits of information about herself with practiced caution, but when she wasn't talking, Really was. Really spoke often, and on a diverse array of topics. Although she mostly spoke about herself, she also talked about guns, about the rangers, and about the Mojave.

“Hot, hot, hot all the fuckin time,” she complained as they soaked their socks in the river. They sat on the shore in their bare feet, taking a break from their travels.

“Except at night,” Julia lay against a rock and pulled her hat down over her eyes, “Sometimes it gets too cold at night. I think that's the worst.”

“Hmmm. Whenever it got cold at night in Nipton, we'd go out and get rocks,” Really stared out over the river and remembered, “They'd be so hot from the sun all day, we put 'em under these scratchy blankets and slept next to them. Kept us warm.”

“Same,” Julia said. They sat in silence for awhile. Julia rested her eyes and Really clutched her knees to her chest and stared at the opposite shore. The sun beat down and the water lapped at the beach as their socks (or in Julia's case, foot-wraps) dried.

“Did you ever see your mom again?” Julia asked. She sat up and pulled her hat off of her eyes. Really cocked her head back and looked at her. She looked sad.

“Yeah, but not for a long time. Not until I had my ranger armor,” she looked out over the Colorado again. Julia followed her gaze.

“Dunno how long it was,” she continued, “Time spent with the Vipers was, heh, whooa fuzzy. When I saw her again she looked old, though. Real old. Didn't even recognize 'er at first.”

She picked up a stone and tossed it into the river, where it landed with a ker-plunk.

“Didn't even wanna go back, really. But, whole buncha rangers headed out there and they needed my help. Big shit goin' down, like, Nipton wouldn't be there no more if we hadn't bailed 'em out. Figured I'd go, but I didn't seek 'er out or anything, y'know? She was there, though.”

“Did she find you?” Julia asked.

“Hell no. Didn't even realize it was me 'til I told her. Shit, didn't even believe me 'til I told her his name,” Really sneered, “Told 'er what happened to 'im. Bitch didn't even fuckin' care. Never gave a fuck about me or 'im. Shit, she had two more fuckin' kids after I left. Didn't treat 'em any better than she treated me an'...”

She pulled out a flask Julia hadn't seen before and took a long drink from it. When she pulled it away from her lips she coughed and blinked, then put the flask away.

“Blech,” she stuck out her tongue and wiped her mouth, “Yeah, it didn't go well. Basically, told her she was a bitch and I was done with 'er... Kinda felt amazing, actually. At the time... not so much. But, later.”

She smiled at Julia and Julia smiled back. She asked Julia if she ever thought she would return to her tribe.

“Oh, fuck no!” Julia blurted, “Ha! Yeah, no way... Well... maybe if I had my own set of armor and a big gun and I was supreme warrior of the wasteland like you. I'd go back then and rub it in their faces, absolutely.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Really laughed and threw a clod of dirt at Julia, who broke out in hysterics and fell backwards. She'd never been happier in her entire life. Really was her first friend.

They didn't want for anything as they traveled. Keeping close to the river gave them a near-limitless supply of fresh water, and even though Julia was an expert forager, Really was even better. Having spent plenty of time along the river she knew exactly where every good source of desert fruit was. In addition, she had a small supply of food on her, including jerky. When she offered it Julia wolfed it down, her first taste of meat since the fishing cabins.

They came across an ancient boathouse and decided to make a fire. Julia was especially excited when she discovered mugs and an old coffee pot in the musty kitchen. She'd been saving some coyote tobacco for just such an occasion.

“I can finally have a cup of coffee!” she exclaimed to Really, who was prying up floorboards for the fire. Really smiled. She didn't care for coffee, and was surprised to find out her friend did. She seemed too young for that stuff. After they got the fire going, Really asked Julia why she was so excited for a cup of coffee.

“Can't stand the stuff, myself,” she admitted.

“Hmmm,” Julia sipped her coffee contentedly, “Well, before I left, I drank it every day, at least two cups. The first day on my own was a nightmare, because I got a huge headache at the time I usually drink it,” she laughed.

“Well, okay. But why start drinking? Always tasted like mud to me,” Really chewed thoughtfully on a honey mesquite pod. Julia suddenly fell silent and gazed into the crackling fire.

“My grandfather,” she said finally, “I used to drink it every day with my grandfather. He loves coffee even more than I do.”

She stared into the fire and her head felt too hot, she started to shake and take deep breaths. She burst out into jagged sobs, and tears streamed down her face.

“Whoa, whoa,” Really moved over and embraced her, pulling the girl to her armor-clad chest, “It's okay, it's okay.”

“I just- I left so fast,” Julia said between sobs, “I didn't- I didn't say goodbye to anyone or anything. I just- I just left, and-and-and, this is, this is the furthest I've ever been from home, and-and-and I, I've never been this alone, and I don't, I don't know where I'm going!-”

Really held her close, stroked her hair and rocked gently. Julia kept crying.

“Before you met me, a week after I left, I killed the first people I saw. And,” she admitted, “I stalked them, and I killed them, but I think- I think I just wanted to get to know them!”

“It's okay,” Really got up and took her coat off, and wrapped it around Julia's shoulders, then sat down and hugged her close again, “Here, the night gets cold sometimes.”

She let Julia cry for a little longer, then said, “It's okay to get sad every once in awhile. Even I still get sad about my brother dying, and it's been years.”

Julia rubbed her eyes, “Really?”

She smiled warmly, “Really. Everybody gets sad sometimes. Even supreme warriors of the wasteland.”

Julia laughed, embarrassed. Really laughed along with her. She leaned against Really's armored chest.

“Thanks,” she said. She'd stopped crying.

“No problem. But,” Really added, “You're gonna tell me the story how you killed those people, 'cause it sounds awesome.”


	63. Mayor Winsor

Mayor Winsor

Julia shot him in the face. They both dove for his gun, but she got to it first and she took a wild shot. It blew his face inwards, and the recoil threw her into the dirt.

They finally reached the Hoover Dam after taking a long road up the Colorado. Really could have made the journey in half the time, but they meandered and enjoyed each other's company. She taught Julia how to spot and how to snipe using her carbine. They practiced on what Really called lakelurks but the Twisted Hairs called cha'l taaqa, which were easy sport for Really but gave Julia trouble.

“It's the gun,” Really offered by way of apology, “You'd've hit 'em right between the eyes with somethin' a little lighter.”

Even though Really's big beautiful gun and big beautiful bullets did not make an ideal weapon to train with, Julia took to sniping well, and had a natural talent for it.

Really continued to tell Julia stories about being a Viper and being a Ranger. Julia even opened up with a few stories of her own, although she didn't think her stories were as interesting. In an effort to keep up she mostly told stories of interesting injuries she'd treated.

“I guess they thought it would go away on its own, or something. I mean, it was stupid enough to not see me after he chewed his leg up 'cause he coulda got tetanus or something, but to actually have stuff crawling around in there...”

“Yeucchhh,” Really playfully shuddered.

“Yeah, so, eventually he got so sick they had to come to me, but before I could clean his wounds I had to get rid of these wriggling, like, they looked like bloatfly larvae. I must've picked out about a hundred. Anyway, I figured that wouldn't be the gross part 'cause he waited so long to see me I figured he'd have a bunch of necrotized flesh and probably MRSA and the dead only know how many fucked up infections, but!” she gestured to Really, “The wound was mostly clean!”

Really gave Julia a disbelieving look, “It's true! He was even emitting less radiation than a typical wastelander. I guess the maggots ate all the infection and stuff, cleaned him out.”

“Why was he sick, then?”

“Botulism. From a damaged can of beans,” Julia laughed, “I tried to experiment more with maggots to see if they were a good method of cleaning wounds, but it was too difficult to keep a steady supply, and sometimes they didn't work,” she admitted, “Also the maggots grew up before I killed them and antagonized the whole village. I actually got in big trouble for letting a swarm of bloatflies hatch in the center of Dry Wells,” she sheepishly confessed.

“But maybe if I'd had some support I could've revolutionized tribal medicine. I could've revolutionized all wasteland medicine! It was hard to find and keep the maggots but it was a lot easier than getting disinfectant,” she groused. Really conceded she had a point.

“But, I'd have to be in a bad, bad way to let maggots all up in me,” Really shuddered.

“Everybody is in a bad, bad way,” Julia argued, but let it drop. She was sensitive to getting shut down, but knew Really wasn't actually trying to discourage her like her grandfather had for years. Once while they were walking along the shore Really accidentally provoked that raw nerve.

Julia was explaining her experiments with colon cleansing to get rid of parasites, claiming that urine had the ideal pH and availability to reliably flush out most worms when Really abruptly cut her short, and told her on no uncertain terms that colon cleansing and urine treatment were both thoroughly debunked three hundred years ago. Although curt, the statement was meant to be helpful, as Really admired Julia's hard work but understood there was simply some information she didn't have access to, but Julia only heard all of the discouragement and abuse she'd taken from her grandfather and his people and took Really's help as a personal attack. In a quick moment she unleashed all the frustration and resentment that she'd been harboring on her friend and then immediately regretted it. Really was apologetic and understanding after catching her best glimpse yet of what Julia's life was like among the Twisted Hairs, the isolation and disenfranchisement that had only been hinted at obliquely through Julia's stories come to life in a flash, terrible and sad. After each of them made their apologies, Julia was quiet for the rest of the day, but the next morning she was in high spirits again.

When they neared the end of their journey, she became the first Twisted Hair to ever see the Hoover Dam.

“Holy fuck,” was what she said when she saw it. Really waggled her eyebrows and conceded.

“Yeah.”

“No way,” Julia countered, to which Really simply shrugged her shoulders and smiled her lopsided smile.

They walked to the grand Dam, Really lead and Julia followed in stunned silence. They'd known each other for more than a month, but Really didn't expect her friend to be so impressed. To Really the Dam was simply another facet of life, no more impressive than her rifle or the setting sun. It didn't occur to her that Julia had never seen any human accomplishment that rivaled the Dam, even though she herself had never actually seen any human accomplishment that rivaled the Dam. She'd just come to accept it long ago, even as its immensity loomed over all of the Mojave.

“Yeah, we took it over after we killed off all the trogs,” she informed Julia as they made their way to a building that was visible for miles around, “They were living in the dark, yeah. That's what they like, but it's not like they can talk or whatever. So, we killed 'em all and we set up shop. Couple of other people livin' in there, too, I dunno. Can't say spend a lot of time there, y'know? Prefer the outdoors myself. I'm not a trog, huh?”

Julia nodded her head numbly. She couldn't take her eyes off the Dam. She didn't know what a trog was, but she didn't actually hear anything Really said.

“Yeah, y'know, the rangers use it as a base. Plus, like, fresh water and e-lec-tricity, huh? Yeah, I guess it's pretty rad. Still not my scene, though.”

“E-lect-tricity?” Julia asked, only vaguely familiar with the concept as an abstract gleaned from old books.

“Yeah, yeah! Electricity! All the arcing bolts and such. You think the building's great, wait till you see what it's meant for!” Really was excited. The structure itself didn't get much respect from her, but she couldn't deny her respect for its purpose. Although in Nipton she'd lived a fairly comfortable life as powered by fusion batteries, after her time as a Viper she couldn't deny the magic of electricity. In that time it became to her like something divine, and when she realized (in those brief minutes after they first witnessed the legacy of pre-war America) that Julia had never once in her life enjoyed the comforts afforded by electricity it made her very excited. They quickened their pace, but they weren't fast enough.

Richard Winsor was once the mayor of Boulder City. Mayor Winsor was a strong man, who came from a long line of hardy stock and he took no guff and he gave no quarter. He became mayor because he was big and tough and no one fought him for it. The people of Boulder City didn't care who was mayor because up until Mayor Winsor the title didn't mean anything, a relic of a bygone era that had symbolic significance and nothing more.

Mayor Winsor had a vision for a yet-unrealized Boulder City, a Boulder City that was the main hub of the Mojave, a new capital of a new empire. He was a man of plans, and after becoming mayor he set about making his plans reality. His Utopian vision started with consolidating not just Boulder City but the area around Boulder City under his authority. He started by kidnapping people and forcing them to work repairing buildings and tilling fields, while he turned citizens of Boulder City, who he called the 'first citizens', into a militia. They went along with him because holding old guns and spears was easier than repairing crumbling architecture and harvesting corn and cactus fruit.

It took no time at all for Mayor Winsor's 'first citizens' to draw the attention of the Desert Rangers, especially given Boulder City's proximity to the Dam. The Rangers had taken on raider bandits before, but Mayor Winsor was the first true warlord they took on.

In the end, after realizing his 'first citizens' were little more than the intimidated residents of Boulder City, the Rangers turned Winsor's people against him, and he was deposed with minimum bloodshed. The people of Boulder City awkwardly apologized to the people they'd enslaved, and offered to let them stay, and Mayor Winsor was cast out into the wastes.

But he never forgot the Rangers, and he never forgave them for what they did to him. He wandered the wasteland for years, making pacts and consolidating power. He finally amassed a big enough force of drug addicts, psychopaths, and degenerates to take on the Rangers, even in their stronghold, and in the end he was shot in the face by a fifteen-year-old girl using his own gun.

Julia and Really approached the Dam at the same time Winsor and his forces attacked. They could hear the raiders' war cries before they saw them, a force of at least a hundred. Without hesitation the two sprang into action, Really and her rifle and Julia and her grease gun. Julia laid down cover while Really picked them off one by one. Really didn't miss a single shot, but there were too many and they had to retreat. Thankfully, Winsor's men were targeting the Dam, and very few of them followed Really and Julia as they withdrew.

“Alright, finally some decent action!” Really smiled as she reloaded her rifle, “We need to swing around and hit 'em from behind. Got a good opportunity here, can't waste it.”

Julia nodded in agreement as she loaded a new clip into her gun. Her heart was pounding, but it was excitement rather than fear. For a moment they paused and listened to the machine gun fire echo from the Dam. They steeled themselves then broke cover.

They maneuvered their way around Winsor's army. Julia laid down suppressive fire while Really sniped. By the time they flanked the enemy Julia was completely out of ammo, and Really was out of rifle ammo. Together they'd done serious damage to the raiders, cutting off their retreat and forcing them into a veritable meat grinder the Rangers established on top of the Dam.

“We need to push our advantage, I gotta get right up their assholes,” Really slid her helmet on and drew her pistol, “Will you be okay if I leave you back here?”

Julia nodded enthusiastically, pumped full of adrenaline from the fighting, “I'll hide. You go!”

With Julia's approval, Really dived deeper into the fray. Julia retreated away, heart still pounding in her ears but she was unable to stop grinning maniacally. As the sounds of battle grew fainter she could hear someone talking.

“I don't care!” Mayor Winsor screamed into his radio, “Somebody get the detonator, then! I don't care if you have to blow it while it's still attached, I want them dead dammit!”

He was too distracted by his rapidly failing plan to notice her sneak up behind him. She pointed her empty pistol at his head and told him to put his hands up. Mayor Winsor was a big man, at least six feet tall. The years he'd spent in exile were not kind to him, but he was still at least twice as big as Julia. She managed to bluff him anyway.

“You don't want to do anything stupid little girl,” he snarled at her like the trapped animal he was. He wore a cloak made of animal pelts, and at his hip was a big Colt Navy revolver with silver snake grips. His face was scarred into a permanent sneer, but she could tell he was afraid.

“Take off your belt, and throw it over here,” she was fifty feet away from him, far enough that he couldn't tell that her gun was empty. He glared at her as he took off his belt and threw it. It hit the ground between them, a little closer to him than her. He could tell something was off.

“Well?” he said after a moment, “Aren't you going to shoot me?”

“I want you alive,” she improvised, anxiously wishing Really was there, “So the Rangers can hang you from the Dam.”

Mayor Winsor didn't buy it. He licked his lips, “See, here's the thing. I don't think you've got any bullets. Otherwise you woulda just shot me, none of this stick-up brahmin shit.”

She didn't bother trying to come up with more lies. She tossed her empty gun to the ground and took off like lightening for the gun between her and the mayor. He tried to race her for it but was too slow. He was right on top of her when she pulled the Colt from its holster, stuck it in his face and fired. The recoil knocked her to the ground. Mayor Richard Winsor's brains flew out the back of his head and his corpse was flung backwards onto the cracked wasteland dirt. Afterwards, Julia kept the revolver, even though at the time she could hardly use it. As a Daughter of Hecate it became her signature weapon, second only to The Lady.


	64. Vargas, Hoover Dam, and Pills

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Technically a Wasteland and Wasteland 2 crossover also Snake Vargas played by Edward James Olmos

Vargas, Hoover Dam, and Pills

After she shot their leader in the face Julia picked up his radio and used it to tell the raider army to stand down. She was still clutching the big Navy Colt in her hand, smoke still trailing out the barrel. It felt heavy, and she liked the weight.

The remaining raiders surrendered. Three-fourths of them were dead, a big pile of bodies on top the Dam. The Rangers locked them all up in the Visitor Center's bathrooms while they decided what to do with them. Vargas himself confiscated the other radio.

“Hello?” he asked Julia.

“Hi!” Julia chirped back, surprised someone was talking to her on the other end.

“... Who is this?” Vargas asked.

“Julia,” she took a few moments to answer. The area was still dangerous, and she was wary of any psychopaths who opted to flee the Dam rather than surrender. She gathered up the gunbelt for her new gun and hid while she waited for Really to return, “Who's this?”

Vargas rolled his eyes in exasperation, “This is Chief Ranger Hernán Vargas of the Desert Rangers,” he said wearily, “We were just attacked by some one-hundred men who only stopped when you told them to. Care to explain why?”

“Uh, I killed their leader?” she offered.

“And why would you do that?”

It seemed self-evident to her, so she had to think for a minute to find a way to explain it. There didn't seem to be a good way to do it over the radio, “Ummm, I had the opportunity, I guess? Wouldn't you?”

Vargas had to chuckle. He admitted he would do the same, “although, my motives might've been a little more complex than yours.”

“Just happy to help,” Julia nervously gripped her new revolver. She could hear someone approach, but it turned out to be Really. Once the raiders surrendered Really unceremoniously killed the stragglers in the back and left to find Julia. She didn't know Julia killed the mayor and forced the surrender, but was impressed when she told her. She wasn't a part of the Rangers when they deposed Mayor Winsor and didn't know who he was, not that there was much left to identify him by. They gave him a traditional raider funeral, which is to say they stripped his corpse of valuables and left it to rot in the wasteland sun. So ended the former mayor of Boulder City and presumptive emperor of the Mojave.

Julia ditched the radio after cheerfully telling Vargas she'd see him soon, and followed Really back up to the Dam. The other Rangers weren't expecting them, but two were still outside shoveling bodies into a pit and they saw them approach.

“Holy shit! You got here just in time, huh?” the female Ranger laughed when she saw Really.

“Yeah, you like my present?” Really jokingly indicated to the dead men, “Better than a snowglobe, right?”

The three Rangers laughed, the woman and man happy to have an excuse to slack off and Really happy to be back. The woman looked to be about the same age as Really with similarly short, black hair, and although Julia knew better she could've sworn they were sisters. The man looked to be between Really and Julia's age, and had curly hair and some sort of tribal tattoo on his neck. He was wearing aviator sunglasses. All of the Rangers were wearing the same body armor, although the man wasn't wearing a coat and the woman had words and patterns scrawled all over hers. From Julia's perspective (just slightly behind Really) they looked mostly to be swears.

“Seriously, though, do you know what the hell was up with that?” the woman who looked like Really asked, “It looks like these guys are all over the map. We got one with 80 armor, another couple who look like Scorpion's Bite, some of your old friends... It's bizarre.”

“Holy shit, I think know that guy,” Really indicated to a dead Viper, “But, yeah, I dunno. Julia killed their leader, though,” she indicated to the young woman nervously standing behind her. Julia waved and smiled, “Julia, this is Ace and Christine. Ace and Christine, Julia.”

“Whoa, you're the one who told them to surrender?” Ace asked.

“Wow, way to go!” Christine said at the same time, while offering her hand, which was covered in blood.

“Yeah, we were coming to the Dam and they attacked, so we kinda went behind them and I found that guy talking into his radio, so...” Julia shook her hand and babbled, “It's really cool to meet you guys!”

“Used to be a Twisted Hair. I found her by the Colorado, she's been followin' me ever since,” Really joked. Ace perked up suddenly.

“Twisted Hair? Didn't we kill a whole ton of 'em a couple years ago?” he asked. Really grimaced and made a gesture, but it was too late.

“You did?” Julia asked, a little stunned.

“Yeah, a couple years ago. Big war band, harassing, um... Searchlight?” Christine said.

“No, couldn't have been Searchlight. Too far north. Cottonwood?” Ace contributed.

“Wow,” Julia nervously gasped, “I never heard anything about a war band getting wiped out... Must not have been from Dry Wells...”

“Oh well, whatever. Welcome to the Dam!” Really tried to save. As they walked into the Dam she punched Ace behind everyone's back and mouthed “Fucking asshole” at him. He shrugged his shoulders apologetically.

Julia had never been in anything like the Dam before, and as they entered the easternmost tower (that wasn't collapsed) she had the unnerving feeling of being swallowed by a massive, timeless beast. The moving doors of the small box the four of them entered even reminded her of a sphincter, pulsing open and shut. She didn't want to embarrass herself but the elevator scared the hell out of her. She had no idea why they were crowding into it, and when it began to move deeper into the depths she almost felt like crying, like the world was falling out from under her.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Really was oblivious to her alarm, “Benefit of some good ole AC/DC.”

Julia merely nodded her head, sweat gathering on her brow. She was worried if she opened her mouth she would throw up. She could feel them sink deeper into the beast's guts, growing ever confident that when the sphincter opened again they'd all be dropped into stomach acid and consumed. Instead it opened into a dimly-lit kitchen. Everyone made to leave and Julia was so disoriented she stumbled.

“Oops, guess you never rode in a elevator before, huh?” Really caught her, “Sorry. Probably a little scary?” She smiled apologetically.

“I threw up the first time I rode in one,” Ace offered helpfully, “Vargas made me clean it up while the elevator went up and down. So I'd get used to it.”

“Yeah, you didn't do so bad,” Christine added. She was familiar with elevators her whole life, although growing up in Vegas she'd mostly ridden in manually-powered ones, either operated by a crank or even a couple of stout men pulling the rope. She explained the mechanism of the elevator to Julia, which made the younger woman much more comfortable though still a little nauseous.

The inside of the Dam was all concrete and steel and wires. It was cold and damp, and from somewhere below came a steady hum, the whirring mechanical heart of the great beast. From somewhere in the kitchen came a steady dripping. All around was a faint crackling noise, like glass splintering. Nothing Julia could make out in the dim light disabused her of the notion that she was in the body of a massive creature.

The Desert Rangers occupied the best rooms in the Dam, the old offices. The Rangers led Julia through a thick metal door into a long hallway, past a few sickly-looking plants in cracked pots lit by battery-powered lanterns suspended from the ceiling by a thick cord. The sound of dripping followed them into the hallway, the hollow ping of water droplets hitting metal pipes. They passed more metal doors, including a big double-wide one, until they stopped and Ace opened a door that led into a brightly-lit room with two pool tables.

“Ladies first,” he sardonically gestured into the room. Christine stuck her tongue out at him and Really rolled her eyes.

“Julia- Ghost Woman,” Really pointed at a tall, thin woman pale as death and with wild, greasy black hair. Unlike the other Rangers she wore all black, and her sunken eyes stared maniacally at Julia.

“Julia- Pills,” Pills was playing a game of pool, and looked like Julia the way Christine looked like Really, except her hair stuck straight out and was dyed purple. She glared at Julia, and Julia noticed she had a fresh bullet hole in the breast of her Ranger coat.

“Julia- Gilbert,” she pointed to a large man with long gray hair and a bushy gray mustache, who was wearing a bathrobe and sitting in a chair drinking scotch from a glass.

“Thrasher,' he said while acknowledging her with a tip of his drink, which was either a nickname he wanted her to call him or some sort of old slang Julia had never heard.

“Thrasher,” Really confirmed, “Julia-”

“We've already met,” she was cut off by the stentorian man in the back of the room. He looked like an old-fashioned colonel with his beard and hat and jacket, and Julia recognized his gravelly voice as belonging to the man she talked to over the radio, “I suppose I ought to thank you,” he offered his hand and she shook it.

“Where are the other Rangers?” she asked innocently.

“All over the Mojave,” Vargas smiled and let go of her hand, “Can I offer you a drink?”

“You fought off all those guys with just six people?!” She blurted. Really corrected her, noting that she made seven.

“Seven people and some well-placed turrets,” Pills sunk a ball in a corner pocket. Really explained to Vargas how she met Julia, and Julia gave everyone the full story on how she cornered and killed Mayor Winsor. Everyone but Pills, who continued to sulk and play pool, was impressed.

“My first mission as a Ranger we killed a bunch of Twisted Hairs,” Pills told Julia, taking a break in her game to look her directly in the eyes, “They were attacking Searchlight.”

“Searchlight! Called it!” Ace snapped his fingers, prompting Really to smack him in the back of the head.

“Didn't kill anybody I knew,” Julia said calmly. She glared right back at Pills. Something was familiar about the young Ranger, but Julia couldn't quite put her finger on it. Even though Ace had been tactless when he brought up the Rangers' less-than-positive relations with the tribe earlier, she was glad he had since it readied her against Pills' attempt at intimidation.

“Alright, well, we took the long, lonesome road back, so we should probably take a load off,” Really intervened in the budding rivalry between the two girls.

“Absolutely,” Vargas agreed, “You can stay with us for as long as you like. Really will show you where we keep house.”

After Really shut the door to the rec room behind them Julia asked her what the deal with Pills was. As they made their way to the living quarters of the Rangers Really explained as best she could.

“Used to fix up junkies in Vegas, I think? She's tribal, I know that. Maybe she's threatened by you? Another badass young tribal?” she guessed, “Prolly been shot by Twisted Hairs, if she ain't lyin' 'bout Searchlight. That's likely to make her a little moody, but I dunno. Get over it, right? Gonna be angry all the time you stay angry at everyone ever shot ya.”

The Ranger's living quarters was a room full of beds. Julia picked out a locker to keep her meager possessions in and Really handed her a towel. She asked what it was for.

“The best part,” Really grinned like a lunatic and led Julia to an adjacent room, which turned out to be tiled, with sinks and toilets and shower heads. Julia was baffled by Really's enthusiasm as Really stripped naked for the first time since they'd met. She indicated to Julia to do the same, and Julia confusedly complied.

When Really was totally naked Julia saw just how scarred her friend was. There were scars from drug use up and down her veins, jagged scars from knife wounds on her legs and sides and shoulders, and matching bullet hole scars on the front and back of her abdomen. With her armor off Julia realized Really smelled absolutely terrible. She walked over to the showers and cranked the faucet, and at first only a trickle of brown water gurgled out but it was followed shortly by a blast of clear liquid. She stood by the water, testing it occasionally before she waved Julia over.

“What?” Julia goggled at her as she emphatically gestured for Julia to jump into the spray. Julia had never taken a shower before, growing up by the Colorado she'd always cleaned herself in its shores. When Really finally convinced her to step into the hot water she jumped right back out, scared that it would burn her, but then allowed her body to adjust to the heat and was overcome with waves of pleasure.

She involuntarily moaned a short Twisted Hair prayer. Really nodded her head vigorously in agreement and added, “I know, right? Water heater.”

They showered until the water turned cold and when they were done they wrapped themselves in towels and relaxed in the steamy room. Julia felt more comfortable than she'd ever felt in her life, and all her apprehension of the Dam melted away in her first hot shower. The beast could eat her for all she cared, so long as its digestion felt as wonderful as that shower.

Ace was in the barracks flipping through an old pamphlet on jeep maintenance when they returned. When he saw they were wearing nothing but towels he blushed a bright red and awkwardly babbled about leaving. Julia didn't care in the slightest and completely ignored him as she walked to her locker and stripped her towel off. He briefly forgot he was leaving to stare at her, but abruptly remembered when Really smacked him hard in the back of the head.

“She's Twisted Hair,” she hissed at him. He coughed nervously and stared at the floor as he made a quick exit. Julia paid as much attention to his absence as she had to his presence. She was glumly contemplating the rags that had swaddled her to the Dam. What was once her finest dress had been reduced to two strips of floral-print cloth, the colors faded and the fabric worn thin.

“Hey, I have some extra clothes if you need any... Pants, maybe?” Really noticed her melancholy and tried to help. She took Really up on her offer, even though, “My clothes are a little big for you, but we can make them work.”

Julia opted to wear Really's pants (with the legs rolled up and a belt) but couldn't bear to totally part with her former finery and put the top of her dress back on in compromise. Before she could put her mismatched boots back on, Really told her there was a leatherworker deeper in the Dam who could make her a pair of boots that fit, then made her promise to wait while she went and got him.

For the first time Julia was left alone in the Dam. She stretched out on a bed and listened to the hum and crackle of hydroelectric energy, somewhere below her the churning of the Dam's lone working turbine. She drifted off to sleep, more at peace than she'd ever been in fifteen years. Although later she wouldn't remember her dream, she dreamt of fire, of the fire that stripped the world of everything but soot and ash and she was enveloped in the fire but it didn't burn her and she was pregnant, she knew she was with child and when the fire receded she stood on that plain of soot and ash and delivered her infant but before she could see it before she could see her child she woke up.

The crackle of fire went back to being the crackle of electricity and in the corner of the barracks was a rummaging sound. Julia sat up and discovered Pills digging around in a locker. Pills ignored her, and she sat on the bed for a moment observing the Ranger before she initiated dialogue.

“Really said you're from the ruins of Vegas? And you used to be a tribal?” Julia asked in a friendly way. Pills clenched her teeth and frowned like Julia was asking for a fight when she asked, “What tribe are you from?”

Pills stopped digging around in her locker before tersely replying, “Iron Lines.”

“Oh! I didn't know Iron Lines had made it as far as Lost Vegas,” Julia brightened. She knew a few Iron Lines who married into the Twisted Hairs, “Makes sense, though, there is a line going by there...”

“They haven't,” Pills looked at Julia, “My mother and I were kidnapped when I was little, and sold to the Slither Kin,” she sneered and walked over.

“By Twisted Hairs,” she finished, and rolled up the sleeve of her jacket to reveal a hideous burn scar in the shape of a snake. Even though the burn was obviously years old Julia winced in sympathy. She gently held out her hand in request, and Pills thrust her forearm at her with venom.

“Slither Kin?” she asked while delicately examining the scar with her fingers. It was on the delicate underside, the calloused, ropey feel of knitted flesh contrasted sharply with the soft skin surrounding. _It must have hurt like hell_, thought Julia.

“The worst of the worst,” Pills grimaced, “Of the worst. I grew up being passed around by,” she shuddered, “old men. Cruel men.”

“But you got out?” Julia looked her in the eyes hopefully but she looked down at her scar. She muttered yes.

“You got out, and became supreme badass of the wasteland?” Julia goaded her, grinning from ear to ear, “Supreme badass who doesn't ever have to take anyone's shit ever again?”

Pills realized that the young girl (although not much younger than her) looked up to her. She admitted to herself that Julia was not to blame for the terrible things the Twisted Hairs did, and in fact was probably more a victim of their cruelty than she herself. The girl bent down and tenderly kissed Pills' old scar.

“From one former slave to another, I'm sorry,” Julia apologized for things she didn't do. When Really came back with the leatherworker, she found both girls sitting beside each other and laughing like old friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it really is nice to write some YA fiction


	65. Marti Picture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW rape in backstory

Marti Picture

Between them they carried a propane tank. Julia couldn't keep her side aloft and the metal scrapped stone and Pills chastised her. It wouldn't do if the pressurized gas prematurely expelled, not when they had such great plans for it.

“Vegas is a big drain where trash collects,” Pills lit a cigarette with her free hand, “Water inevitably takes the path of least resistance, so do people.”

She took a big drag then passed the cigarette to Julia.

“Most of them are desperate. Scared. Lost. Not bad people, just people without any options left. They squat on the edge of town or in the sewers and they hurt themselves all the time. Sometimes self-inflicted. Had to stitch up a guy's face once because he got hopped up on psycho in his tetanus-farm of a house and drove his face through the wall. Had a huge gash on his forehead that he hadn't treated for the twenty-four hours before he came to see me. Apologized, said he was so hopped up on psycho he hadn't even noticed. I told him it was alright, but I never saw him again. Probably died of infection.”

“Oh wow,” Julia said, “That, uh, reminds me of a story. Um, one time when I was living with the Twisted Hairs...”

“I didn't actually get sold to the Slither Kin at first, honestly. Twisted Hairs aren't desperate enough to end up in Vegas and why would the Slither Kin go anywhere else when all the fresh meat comes to them? So I actually got sold to Marti Picture and the 5 Pictures, who were a 'brass band' made up of five brothers, two bent trumpets, a tuba that only played D flat, a plastic guitar, and one big ass drum. They all promised my mother that they wouldn't fuck me if she fucked 'em all so I was just there to carry stuff. Anyway, they figured they could get room and board for playing in Vegas and they were right, but the Slither Kin only had 'em play one gig before deciding they'd rather slit their throats in the night and steal their stuff than listen to them. That's how my mother and I came to be owned by the Slither Kin. I saw my mom only once after Marti died. She'd just been gang-raped, and the stress of it was so much she screamed when I tried to touch her. She didn't even remember me.”

Julia lived at Hoover Dam for four months. In that time she spent as much time as she possibly could with Pills, which wasn't a lot since Pills was often busy.

“Alright, this is safe,” she told Julia and gently sat down the propane tank on sun-bleached stone. They retreated a distance away and Pills unslung her rifle while stubbing out her cigarette. She handed it to Julia, saying, “Your turn.”

Julia accepted the rifle, just a .22, and checked the chamber just like Really taught her to. It had a bullet loaded, not that the area around the Dam was dangerous, at least not usually. After Mayor Winsor's attack the area was peaceful.

Vargas discovered Mayor Winsor was behind it from interrogated prisoners, who were then stripped of weapons and armor and sent scurrying into the wastes with what was hoped to be enough rations to discourage banditry, even though all the Rangers knew better. Julia asked why they didn't just execute the raiders one by one, to which Ghost Woman matter-of-factly grunted, “Bad spirits. Bad karma. Don't want the shadows to grow any longer or wider.”

Vargas explained it was a matter of ethics. It was morally wrong to execute unarmed prisoners, he claimed, that it was something raiders did and so to distinguish themselves and prove they were better than the degenerates of the wasteland they never executed prisoners. To Julia the more ethical solution was killing the prisoners, since letting them go all but guaranteed they'd hurt or kill someone later, probably even multiple people.

“You can't kill someone for something they might do,” Vargas told her. She muttered that any raider they let go probably already did enough to warrant execution, but wasn't interested in arguing the point any further. She was much more swayed by Really's argument, that mercy was for practical reasons.

“Back when I was Queen Cobra I never woulda negotiated with the Rangers if they'd been killin' all my Vipers. Lotta violence avoided 'cause Rangers don't kill prisoners,” she explained when Pills also wondered aloud why they didn't just kill them all. Whereas Julia was persuaded by Really's insight, Pills remained unconvinced.

Despite their initial hostilities Pills and Julia became fast friends. They were still young, the youngest among the Rangers, and they had more energy and less cynicism. Nobody in the wasteland got to be any age at all without some terrible tragedy to mark them, but compared to Rangers like Ghost Woman or Christine or especially Thrasher Pills and Julia were still foolish girls, and when they were together they acted like it.

When Pills went on expeditions for the Rangers, sometimes for days at a time, Julia holed herself up in the Dam and took advantage of the small library Vargas assembled in his 'office.' In a few short weeks she read more than she ever read in all her prior years, so much so that the old man started affectionately calling her 'bookworm,' a name she found distasteful (having never heard of a beneficial worm) but was willing to tolerate in exchange for access to more reading material.

The pride of Vargas' painstaking collection was a fifty-volume set of books labeled “HARVARD CLASSICS: THE FIVE-FOOT SHELF OF BOOKS,” of which he had almost all fifty. The leather-bound volumes were notably older than the other books he owned and she was drawn to their austere dignity. Vargas noted her interest and with naked hubris bragged about them.

“All the liberal education anyone could ever need in a five-foot square shelf. The best of the best determined by the wisest of the old world,” he said. Julia was awestruck. She poured over the books like they were divine.

When Pills was around, though, she spent most of her time with Pills. Due to her enslavement by the Twisted Hairs and then by the Slither Kin, it was impossible to know just how old Pills actually was. She guessed that she was about twenty years old, or roughly five years older than Julia. She birthed a child around six years ago, give or take a few months, but that didn't mean anything, as Julia had seen girls as young as ten and as old as twenty-nine give birth. As far as Pills knew the child (it was a boy) was still alive, but she had traded it shortly after it was born to a friendlier Vegas tribe for security. Julia thought it was odd the way Pills spoke of her son. It was similar to the way she talked about bullet provisions or tactical encampments, in a detached but appreciative way. It unnerved Julia, but she acknowledged it didn't make Pills a bad person. Life was tough in the wasteland, and everyone made sacrifices with varying degrees of success and morality. Pills' sacrifice wasn't so cruel and it was evidently very successful. Sometimes that was the best anyone could hope for. In any case, Julia didn't press Pills about her child and Pills didn't offer much.

She was much more excited to shoot guns with her. They checked assault rifles and SMGs out of the Ranger armory and shot whatever random junk they could find. They shot stuffed bears, they shot bottles both empty and full. Sometimes they shot their own names into rusty sheets of old metal. Unlike Really who was more careful and calculated, Pills' technique was more spray-and-pray. She reasoned that if she filled the air between her and the enemy with enough bullets, one was bound to hit its mark, statistically. Thrasher, who served as reluctant quartermaster, derisively called her 'the bullet eater,' but was so unconcerned about their supply that he gave Pills all the ammo she ever asked for.

At first their reckless expenditures made Julia nervous and scared. Among the Twisted Hairs bullets were sacred, fetishized objects of great and terrible power. Finding bullets that would not only fire but wouldn't take your hand at the same time was difficult in Arizona. One time, she remembered, her grandfather beat her with a stick for touching some ammunition he left out, as though by her touch she laid a curse on them. He even cleansed them with an old Twisted Hair purification ritual.

Even Really carefully monitored her ammo usage up the Colorado. At the Dam, though, they tore through hundreds of bullets in a single afternoon. The first time they did so Julia was terrified there wouldn't be enough bullets left in the event the Dam was attacked, although she pretended not to care because Pills didn't care and Julia didn't want Pills to think she wasn't cool, even though she was sweating their use of bullets. Her faith in Pills was rewarded, though, when she finally caught a good glimpse of the Ranger's ammo stores.

“More bullets than you've ever seen, huh?” Pills smirked confidently, “We got enough ammo here to fight a war,” she claimed. When tested later, her boast turned out to be less than accurate, but still mostly true.

“You'd be amazed at how much gets done without 'em,” Really said when asked how the Rangers could have such an arsenal, “Try to avoid gunplay much as possible. You'd be surprised how many people prefer compromise to it. They can get real reasonable with a gun pointed at 'em. No need to waste bullets shootin' a reasonable person.”

Pills corroborated that indeed the Rangers favored diplomacy over violence, but expressed some thinly-veiled distaste at the notion herself. She implied Really was a hypocrite for promoting nonviolence yet in practice was one of the more deadly Rangers. To Pills violence and death were a way of life, and she hadn't felt any compulsion to change that since joining the Rangers, especially since as a Ranger the violence and death at her hand was ostensibly in service of virtue and the greater good. As a doctor in Vegas she killed plenty of people, but it never felt quite as morally right as it did in service to the Rangers. Not that she wanted to kill the people she operated on in Vegas, she explained, but all the same death had long been a part of her life.

“Me, too,” Julia told her, even though through good fortune Julia never once lost a patient among the Twisted Hairs. Plenty died later, but never in her care. Before she met Pills she was proud of that.

“The best technique, I find, for hitting any target is to picture whatever it is as someone you hate. Just picture that person's smug fuckin' face and pull the trigger. Pow! Works every time,” Pills instructed her. Often their fun was justified as target practice, even though Pills' wasn't the shot or the teacher Really was. She still offered advice, but that was the only one that stuck with Julia. She lined up the propane tank in her sights, aimed a little up and to the left to counteract the wind, then pictured the propane tank was her grandfather and fired. The .22 caliber bullet hit its mark and the tank exploded brilliantly. The girls cheered.

They shot propane tanks rarely. Every so often, before Julia even knew she was back, Pills would surprise her in a dark corridor in the Dam and excitedly invite her outside, where a new tank was waiting. The first time, Julia couldn't understand why Pills was so excited, which is why Pills got to shoot the first tank after several minutes of coercing Julia into helping her lug it away with promises of extraordinary payoff, upon which she delivered a safe distance from the Dam. Enamored by the pyrotechnics Julia demanded they shoot another, but Pills told her it was a rare treat and made her promise not to talk about it at the Dam. Julia kept her promise and waited patiently for the next time. Her patience was rewarded when she got to shoot the next tank, then Pills shot the next, then Julia again. After they blew it up they made their way back to the Dam and Julia asked Pills a personal question.

“Who are you thinking about when you target something?” she asked. She knew Pills probably had a dozen answers that would mean very little to her, but she couldn't help but be curious.

“Marti Picture,” Pills answered darkly, “for breaking his promise.”


	66. Thrasher, Angela Deth, and Caesar

Thrasher, Angela Deth, and Caesar

Every once in awhile Julia got to meet a new Ranger. They filtered in from all corners of the Mojave, a new one every four or five days. Always she met them the same way. She'd wake up in the barracks of the Rangers (where even Vargas and Thrasher slept, except when Thrasher's leg was bothering him and he'd sleep in the moldy easy chair in Vargas' office. “It’s not the missing one,” he'd grumble, “It's the one I still got!”) and a new person would be sleeping on the cot to her left. Although the routine was the same every time the people themselves were varied. Some were men, some were women, some looked to be vaulters, some looked to be tribals. Some of them slept in their clothes, some slept in underwear, and one slept completely naked. In all her stay she never saw any of them twice. Curious, Julia decided to ask Thrasher how many Rangers were active in the wasteland.

“Huhn. Hmmmmm,” was his discouraging response, “I don't know. Let me see if there's a number in Vargas' desk, here.”

He got up and hobbled over to the old oak desk Vargas sat at to debrief returning Rangers. He shuffled some of the papers on top, mostly Vargas' write-ups and maps. Using his key he unlocked the drawers and shuffled through dry pens, bottle caps, and pulled out two ledgers kept tied with frayed twine. He opened one and discovered it almost exclusively contained hundreds of identical gray and green strips of cloth, each bearing one of three different portraits. That didn't surprise Julia, as she often saw Vargas alternately give or receive handfuls of the ornate napkins to the Rangers he debriefed. Thrasher blushed and hurriedly wrapped up the ledger and put it back in its drawer.

“It's indecent to look at that much money,” he nervously quipped. Julia accidentally blurted, “Money?!” she was so surprised. Legion coin was heavy and metal, not cloth and paper. Once again Julia was shocked at the Ranger's wealth. Thrasher sheepishly ignored her outburst and opened the other ledger to find hundreds of papers that were so official and formal as to be completely obtuse. Vargas walked in on them ransacking his desk.

“We're trying to find out how many Rangers there are,” Thrasher didn't look up from a paper full of unlabeled numbers. Vargas shook his head disapprovingly and put the ledger back together.

“That's in the filing cabinet,” he groused and pulled the filing cabinet in the corner of the room open. He pulled out a manila envelope and flopped it on the table, then a three-ring binder and set that down gently. Inside the three-ring binder was the collected and collated contents of the manila envelope.

“This is whatever identification any of them could give me when they started,” Vargas tapped the envelope, full of over-exposed photographs, old dog tags, amateurish medical reports from the Followers of the Apocalypse, and hand-made identification cards, “This is all of it put together,” he thumped the binder appreciatively. The binder was full of page after page of name, age, blood type, place of origin, and an identifying number assigned by Vargas. The last name in the book was number two-hundred, forty-nine, but Vargas assured her that wasn't an accurate count.

“A lot of these numbers are crossed out,” he flipped through the binder. When Julia gave him a questioning look he explained further, “We don't really have any accounting. I debrief every Ranger that comes back to the Dam, but every once in awhile we get a complaint that someone is terrorizing people in our name. Most of the time they aren't actually Rangers, but sometimes they are, so we send other Rangers out to kill them. Sometimes Rangers die in the line of duty. I make a note of it when I hear, but I don't always hear,” he pointed to a crossed out name, 'Charlize Rogers, number 212' “Turns out she was dead for two years before we got word. We knew she was goin' out to clean up deathclaws outside Goodsprings, but we didn't know they killed her for a long time.”

Julia was less than impressed. In her short time as tribe healer she learned that information was key, that keeping good records was more important than firepower. Granted, the records she kept were more of her own memory than anything tangible, but she wasn't thinking about that as she examined the Rangers' logs. Discovering how poorly organized they were so soon after another reminder of their resources made Julia nervous and curious.

“Yeah, I dunno,” Really returned to the Dam two days later, fresh blood stains on her coat, “Vargas and Thrasher put on festivals sometimes, y'know? I think the most Rangers I've seen together was... fifty? But, yeah, not a whole lot of organization, or whatever. Most Rangers work solitaire. Got the skills, eh?”

“So what's the big deal? What's keeping people coming back?” Julia asked. Really shrugged. It was not the answer she was looking for. She added, “Sometimes it's good to get a little help, but I dunno why it's gotta be from the Dam 'specially,” she suggested Julia ask Vargas.

“Snake'll know better'n me. I mean, I been here only twice before I met you. Didn't always used to come back here erry week!”

She resolved to speak to him the very next day. Pills was away so Julia was holed up in Vargas' office reading more Harvard Classics. After Vargas finished debriefing another Ranger Julia met that morning (he let her sit in his office and read while he debriefed Rangers, which didn't seem odd to Julia at the time but in later years mortified her. The tendency for people to overlook her like that became her best espionage technique) she asked him what made a Ranger. What, if there was no accountability or family or necessity, caused people to call themselves Rangers and keep coming back to the Dam, why they bothered sharing resources. Vargas stared at her blankly for a moment and then burst out laughing.

“Kid, I don't know,” he chuckled and rubbed his paunch. He was getting fat. Julia got pissed off. She was sick of not hearing answers. He saw that she was mad, and said, “Y'know, I've been cooped up in this room for a couple years now. I used to be out in the field with the rest of them, but somebody has to stay here and make sure we have a place to come back to...”

She let him gather his thoughts and hoped he could come up with an actual answer. Although she couldn't tell why the Rangers formed or what kept them together, she knew it had to be something. A plant didn't grow without water, and people didn't come together without a reason. In her experience it was necessity or obligation that kept them together, but that didn't explain the Rangers. None of these people needed each other. She wasn't even sure if they were an organization. As far as she could tell there was nothing organized about them.

“I was there for the beginning. It was me, Thrasher, Hell Razor, and Angela,” Vargas explained, trying to gather his thoughts as he spoke them, “Sort of. The Desert Rangers started out as just another tribe. Old army engineers, former American soldiers, like the Brotherhood. Holed up in the Jean Conservancy, a pre-war women's prison,” he chuckled, “That's where I was born. Me and Angela. Used to be the Rangers were the power in the area. The tribe, I mean.”

“But it isn't a tribe now?” Julia prodded.

“Nope!” he answered, cheerfully hiding the pain he still felt from the loss of his former tribe, “the people that used to be known as the Rangers all scattered. It's just us now. But the old Rangers kinda had the same idea.”

Julia tried to understand what he meant, “Like, they sent people all over the Mojave?” he nodded.

“The tribe had the most resources and the best memory. Over generations the military tradition of self-sacrifice for the greater good became part of our DNA. Also the military tradition of using violence to solve problems,” at that he smiled sardonically, “Me and Angela were following tribe tradition when we set out to help the people of Vegas. Over time, other people joined us. Hell Razor, Gilbert, Christine. Talented people. We weren't quite the tribe anymore, but we were close enough and dangerous enough that the original Desert Rangers started facing a lot of pressure from a lot of bad forces. They couldn't get at us, but they could get at the tribe. As powerful as they were, my people weren't soldiers anymore, just families trying to survive. I tried to return one day and everyone was gone. By that time my Desert Rangers had secured the Dam, so I tried to spread the word and hopefully some of the tribe would come find me, but no one ever has.”

He paused before continuing, “I suppose what keeps us together now is a sort of common ideal. We're just a loosely confederated group of people who believe in doing more good than harm. Nominally Thrasher and I are in charge, but really we just keep the Dam tidy and keep some records. Sometimes we pass along rumors to anyone looking for some good to do.”

“So... nothing is keeping the Rangers together?” Julia asked. Vargas smiled.

“Ideas aren't nothing. If anything, they're more powerful than blood or money. After all, a nation is just an idea that people share. The Rangers are just good people doing good things. We all work together and help each other out, but it's not like the army before the war and it isn't the tribe the Rangers used to be. So what keeps people coming back?” he paused, “I don't really know, but as long as they keep helping the people of the Mojave, I don't really care.”

The two of them sat in silence for a few minutes, digesting what Vargas said. It suddenly seemed to Julia that he was a very small man in a very large room. While she was not satisfied with his answer she accepted it. She realized why she had such a problem understanding the Rangers. From her perspective, with the resources and manpower they had, they should be doing so much more, not spread out all over the Mojave and solving problems piecemeal. They had enough bullets to fight a war, so why were they merely maintaining the status quo?

For some reason her thoughts turned to Caesar's Legion. One volume of Vargas' Harvard Classics contained a biography of a man named Caesar, and when she noted to him that there was a man in the book with the same name as the man in Arizona he conceded that while they were not the same person, the modern Caesar certainly wanted to be the classic Caesar. What the book told her about the classic put the modern in a newly-positive light.

The new Caesar had direction and ambition. He and his men had less resources and less skill than the Desert Rangers, what little they had was in poorer quality than anything the Rangers had, but they did so much more with it. Sure, she heard plenty of bad things about the Legion, but if the new Caesar was indeed modeling himself after the old then it was all in service of a nobler good. Certainly better than the status quo.

The Rangers had accepted her as family, but just as her old family was deeply flawed, so too did seem her new. The idea to go out in the wasteland and do good appealed to her in a way that she admitted to herself was more deeply felt than the bonds of family had once been (Vargas was indeed right about ideas), but she found fault with the Rangers' methods. _Maybe I can help guide them to greater things_, she thought. She knew they could save the wasteland. She knew that she could lead them to save the wasteland.


	67. Serket the Scorpion Goddess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW: the end of innocence

Serket the Scorpion Goddess, and the Rangers as a Whole

Thrasher was disappointed to discover some of the more obtuse documents in Vargas' desk were actually his responsibility. As the defacto quartermaster he was obligated to keep track of their supplies, which he did years ago before he got tired of it and capriciously stopped. What remained of his old notes were inscrutable, but he was spurred into keeping records again by Julia's investigations. Honestly, he'd been shamed by the girl, who through no fault of her own had thoroughly shown him up by simply asking questions, his inability to answer even the most basic of prompting him to re-examine the duties he'd halfheartedly taken upon himself and then abandoned without compunction.

None of the old records were salvageable. While at one time they clearly meant something to him that time was long past, and whatever system he'd used to keep them straight had long since left his mind, no doubt forced out by years of late evenings spent in the company of two-hundred-year-old scotch. All of it was old enough to be irrelevant anyway, at least from a practical standpoint. Maybe if the Rangers wanted to chart their growth (or measure their decline, as the case may be) the old numbers would have some value, but the Rangers had no interest in that sort of intelligence. In all their years at the Dam they'd been flush with enough supplies to never be wanting, exact store counts measured on a line would just be pointless minutia, or at least that was what he thought.

He ran his fingers through his long white hair and stroked his mustache as he made one last effort to try and interpret the data he'd typed into documents way back when, stalling before he finally had to do some real work. He looked up and noticed he wasn't alone. Julia had slipped into the office while he wasn't paying attention and was quietly reading in the moldy armchair he sometimes slept in. He cleared his throat and asked, “Would you like to help me with a project?”

Julia agreed, eager and excited to help her friends in any way possible. Also, she wanted more responsibility. Her goal was to earn the Rangers' trust until she had enough clout to steer their actions in the direction she wanted. She knew it would take time, but she was willing to work at it because she knew her Utopian vision for the future was worth it. After spending two days in a muggy storeroom counting individual 10mm bullets in a big plastic bin she was less enthused. Most of the time they were together Thrasher regaled Julia with bold tales of reckless heroism.

“Well, then she noticed the prospectors,” Julia listened intently, “So, we had ourselves a decision to make. The old beast was keepin' deathclaws off this side 'o the Colorado, but, when a life's in danger, well, sometimes you just gotta shoot first and hope it all works out. So, I whip out my old Springfield and drop the torch and unload a little in her meaty claw.”

Julia gasped in shock, “What happened?!”

Thrasher chuckled, “Heh, heh. Well,” he waggled his eyebrows, “got her attention.”

She loved his stories, she even begged him to tell her more. For every hour they sat in the Ranger's makeshift armory, they spent maybe fifteen minutes at best actually taking stock of the supplies. Sometimes Julia asked for more stories, sometimes Thrasher found something in the clutter that reminded him of some daring mission the Rangers undertook twenty years ago, before Julia was even born. Counting the number of M1911 pistols reminded him of the time they took on Serket, scorpion goddess of the Mojave.

“She was bearing down on Jackie, real close, almost got her pincers around the poor girl and poison drippin' from her stinger!” Thrasher put a lot of character into his stories. He was practiced at them, as every new Ranger could attest, “Angela put all her weight into the lever and popped the rocks off like a Nuka Cola bottlecap! Ole Serkie, she shrugged the first rock off, sure as day, but they just kept comin'! In less than a minute there was nothin' but a pile 'o rocks oozin' green scorpion blood. At first we thought Jackie bit it, too, but that little girl sure could surprise you, and out clamberin' over the rocks she comes. 'I guess we got 'er,' she says,” he burst out laughing and Julia joined in.

To her, Thrasher's word was historical record. She wished she could write down every one of his stories and bind them in a book. It never occurred to her that some of his retelling might lend itself to exaggeration, that in all the years he'd spent sitting in the Dam and thinking about the past some parts had gotten mixed up in his mind. Not that it mattered.

“After you killed Serket, is that when the deathclaws started migrating towards Goodsprings?” Julia asked, “Because she wasn't around to keep them away anymore?”

Thrasher was given pause by her question. No one had ever listened to him as closely as she did, and the pressure was on. He didn't need her showing him up again. After thinking for a minute he said, “Y'know, we never followed up on it. I suppose you're right, that was about the time deathclaws really came out in force in the Mojave. Hrm. I guess it all didn't just 'work out,' huh?”

Secretly, Julia relished in her ability to fluster another man she looked up to. Openly, she knew better than to gloat or assume she had the upper hand on the old warhorse and backpedaled, arguing that since the Rangers were managing the deathclaw population now, it did work out. Thrasher recognized her tactful humility, and mused, “Y'know, you never quite know what the consequences are of everything you do. I wouldn't be surprised if even some of the most unthinking little nothings I've done in my life had some of the most damning results.”

The observation left him solemn and withdrawn for more than an hour, their most productive hour in two days. Julia managed to count all the 10mm bullets in the gray bin only to discover the blue metal box beneath it was also full of 10mm bullets, and also some 9mm and 5mm.

As he tallied guns and thought about the past Thrasher slowly started to recall the system he made up so many years ago for keeping track of supplies. The numbers coalesced into something meaningful and he hurriedly left Julia behind as he went to retrieve the old notes. She was so distracted shuffling bullets around that she didn't notice he was gone, and when she heard shuffling in the room she was surprised to look up and see Pills.

“Oh hey! I didn't know you were back,” she greeted her friend. Pills jumped at her voice. Her body was tense, like she was balancing on a wire. When she recognized Julia sitting on the floor she tried to act casual, but she couldn't shake her nervous energy and rather than relax she flashed a pained smile and stayed contorted, caught in the act.

“Hey,” she fidgeted, “Yeah, yeah, I just got back...”

Julia didn't understand why her friend seemed so uncomfortable. She was worried that Pills was mad at her, that she was keeping her away from something important, but she couldn't figure out what. She nervously returned Pills' forced smile.

“Is, uh, is there anyone in here... with you?” Pills asked while glancing around.

“Yeah, Thrasher and me are counting bullets,” she answered and held up a 10mm bullet to demonstrate. All around her in separate piles were Ranger bullets.

“Oh. Uh, okay... Cool. Cool. See you... uh...uh... later,” Pills said and suddenly vanished through the door. Julia didn't have time to reflect on their strange, stilted conversation before Thrasher came back with a fistful of old papers. He ignored her as he made his way to the back of the room, comparing the numbers on the paper to pistols on a shelf. Rather than talk to Thrasher about Pills' sudden appearance and disappearance she hoped that any awkwardness in the encounter stemmed from her own insecurity and wasn't worth bothering the old man with. He was too busy muttering to himself about numbers to be bothered, anyway. For the rest of the day he was so consumed with deciphering his old notes that there were no more stories and Julia was able to get a count on at least four different types of bullets and organized them accordingly. There wasn't a set schedule for the work she did with Thrasher. For the past two days they were finished whenever Thrasher clapped his hands together and asked her if she was satisfied with the work done, but he was too busy muttering to himself to dismiss her. She didn't want to interrupt him, but she was tired of the gunmetal smell in the hot room. Finally, she decided to approach the old man after quietly standing behind him for ten minutes wondering what to do.

“Hey, uh, I was thinking about, uh... I counted all the bullets in those bins,” she pointed to the plastic bins she'd spent four hours rooting through and handed him the piece of paper with their tally.

“My fingers smell terrible,” she nervously joked.

Suddenly aware of her presence again he looked up from his old notes. He saw her hopeful and insecure expression and broke out in a warm, paternal smile, a little worried that he'd accidentally alienated her. He gently took the paper and thanked her for her help. Behind him were propane tanks.

“Hey, propane!” she recognized them. Thrasher was about to dismiss her but was taken aback slightly. He was surprised she knew what they were.

“Uh, yes. Giving me a bit of trouble at the moment,” he grumbled and shuffled his notes around, “Do you know if Vargas has been using them for anything?”

“Hmmm. No, I don't think so,” she said, “Me and Pills blew up a couple.”

Thrasher's face became ashen and his expression dropped. He made an inept attempt to hide his shock and dismay, but Julia didn't notice.

“You, uh... you and Pills... blew them up?” he blinked. He choked back anger.

“Yeah! Ummm, we shot...” she counted on her fingers, “Five?” she smiled a big, oblivious grin.

Thrasher clutched his chest and stumbled backwards. He steadied himself by holding onto a shelf. When he was a young man with little more than conviction and a rifle, eager to follow Vargas and Angela's lead, he once guarded an ancient (already more than a hundred years old by the time the bombs fell) natural gas well and refinery as a small group of wastelanders harvested and refined. They had to camp at the refinery for two days. Raiders and bandits were so belligerent it was a grueling forty-eight hour slaughter, of which Thrasher himself was the only survivor. He only managed to save two propane tanks, which he carried in each hand for more than a hundred miles back to the wastelanders' surviving kin. He tried to give them both away, but the wastelanders were so grateful despite so much loss they demanded he take one back to his people. As the memory of those harrowing two days played out in his head in detail too thorough to be accurate he struggled to keep his expression neutral

“Julia I need you to go get Snake and wait with him in his office,” his voice was so affect-less she couldn't help but feel nervous. She asked him what she would be waiting for and he told her without any of the warmth that she was so used to, “Me and Pills.”

Julia knew for sure that something was wrong, but dutifully fetched Vargas anyway. It was obvious she and Pills were in trouble, yet Thrasher's staid orders were too neutral for her to gauge just how much. Even still, when Vargas asked her why they were waiting in his office she opted not to tell him. The truth would be out soon enough, she figured, no need to rush it.

After twenty awkward minutes Thrasher hobbled in alone. He walked up to Vargas, who asked him what was wrong while beads of sweat made dew on Julia's forehead. Thrasher snarled something unintelligible about Pills, then nodded to Julia, “She can tell you.”

She was never more scared in all her short life. Growing up with Harpy she was in trouble more often than not, and at Dry Wells she had become acclimated to it. But, among the Desert Rangers at the Dam she hadn't once drawn their ire and liked it. She thought back to the diverse and unpleasant punishments meted out by her grandfather over the years. She assumed the Ranger's punishment scaled with their greater puissance. Absolutely positive she was about to be taken outside and shot, she stared right into Vargas' eyes and told him in a loud squeak, “Pills and I shot some of your propane tanks and blew them up.”

The teenage girl standing in front of him was so vulnerable and scared and proud Commander Vargas couldn't be mad. Staring into her big, brown, quivering eyes all he could do was sigh and rub his temple. Julia shook so hard she almost couldn't stand, her head was hot and she thought she was going to vomit. In the next twenty years she'd be shot enough times to fill an smg clip but at fifteen she'd never been shot once. She saw the aftermath enough to be truly frightened.

“We aren't going to shoot you,” Vargas read her mind. She jumped at the word 'shoot' like it was a bullet and almost fell, but Vargas caught her. Even Thrasher softened seeing how shaken up she was.

“This isn't good, okay? But it'll be okay. You'll be okay. Take a seat,” he led her to one of the metal chairs in front of his desk, not the armchair, then turned to Thrasher and said, “I know where Pills is.”

He reassured Julia everything was going to be alright again, then ordered her to wait and left with Thrasher. While she waited she sat stiff and upright in her seat, sweat still trickling down her temples and gathering in her armpits. She desperately wanted to read, to escape into one of Vargas' books, but she remembered the time she snuck a book into the wardrobe her grandfather used to lock her in as punishment and when he caught her he set the book on fire and tanned her with a gecko-skin belt. Immobilized by the memory, she sat and dreaded Vargas' response to her indiscretion.

She only had to wait fifteen minutes before the men returned, flanking a sulking Pills. They sat her down in the chair next to Julia, then Vargas took his seat behind the desk and Thrasher sat down in the armchair and lit a cigarette. Julia was too embarrassed to try to catch Pills' eye, and instead stared straight ahead at Vargas like an ambushed gecko. Pills snorted and rolled her eyes at her accomplice's fear, but her accomplice didn't notice. She slumped down in her chair, arms crossed and defiant sneer on her face. Vargas sat in judgment of the pair, each the exact opposite even though they looked so alike to him they might as well have been sisters. Due to the politics of tribal society they were second cousins, but neither could possibly know that.

“I,” Vargas started and Julia jumped in her seat, “am deeply disappointed.”

“Those tanks were priceless. Do you know how difficult it is to acquire propane? No?” _really fucking difficult _realized Julia. She squirmed in her chair, “It took half a century to build up our supply. Fifty years of work for thirteen tanks. And you shot five.”

Vargas let his words hang in the air. Pills glared at him and said nothing in her own defense, but Julia was so upset and scared she had to try and defend herself.

“I just thought, you guys have so much already-”

“I know. You didn't know. You couldn't possibly know,” he said to Julia, sadly but heartfelt. The tanks were a rare resource, but he knew people, especially young people, were more important.

“You could,” he pointed at Pills, who didn't react to his accusation besides broadening her smirk, “You did. And you and I are going to talk more about this... But I'm not mad. I'm disappointed. I know both of you enough to know that you are capable of better judgment. And I expect you to exercise better judgment in the future. You are free to go, but if you make an error like this again the consequences will be more severe,” he told Julia, then added ominously, “As this one is about to find out.”

He pointed a finger at Pills, who rolled her eyes at him. Still trembling, Julia rose from her seat. As she got up to leave, she couldn't help but look at Pills, who shot her a glance of pure loathing. Pills felt betrayed, and Julia felt like a betrayer.

In the barracks by herself she broke down into overwhelmed sobs. Her guilt at betraying not only Pills but especially Vargas, Thrasher, and the Rangers as a whole was debilitating. It felt like the worse thing she'd ever done and she couldn't possibly recover. There was no redemption great enough, she felt, to rectify her fuck-up. She considered suicide, just to get away from the shame. She wished they'd shot her instead of leaving her to bear the mark of Cain for the rest of her life.

Worst of all, she knew the Ranger's would never follow her lead after such a colossal mistake. Nothing she could do could ever erase the blight on her history, and with it dragging her down what supreme wasteland warrior would ever take orders from her? Not only was she a selfish traitor, but her dream was dead, too.

“Hey, are you okay?” she was face down on her cot sobbing when Ace found her. He had just finished working for the day on the Ranger's prize possession, a vertibird almost capable of flight, and didn't know about Julia's mistake yet. She jerked her head up to find him sitting on the edge of the cot next to her.

During her time spent with the Rangers Julia was too busy and not angry enough to act the role of seductress, but in hallways and at meals she would casually flirt with Ace. She couldn't figure out why he always seemed so unresponsive to her playful advances. His standoffish but polite rebukes only made her flirtations more aggressive, to the point where she embarrassed herself by attempting a little strip tease for him while every Ranger at the Dam (besides the fixed Rangers, Really, Ghost Woman, and two field Rangers named Doc Tidemann and La Loca who thankfully she never saw again) were gathered in the lounge. Granted, she'd had a bit of Thrasher's single malt that night, but even still she decided she'd crossed a line and dropped it. In her emotionally compromised state, though, she was desperate to give it another try.

“Oh, I'm fine, thank you, please don't worry about it,” she bolted up and dried her eyes, while glancing down and away and arching her back, “Only, could you maybe turn on the radio, please.”

Ever since he saw her naked, Ace was torn between his physical desire for her young body and his obligation to be a responsible adult. Toeing the line when they interacted was difficult for him and he'd been relieved when she finally took it too far and backed off. Because a part of him still hoped to be physically intimate with her, he was aware she was flirting with him, but the part of him that was a responsible adult who wanted to look out for her could tell her tears were earnest. He nodded his head sagely and got up to turn on the room's radio. He flicked it on and a jazzy, instrumental melody piped through tinny speakers. Julia couldn't help a few more tears and loudly sniffed while adjusting her outfit and primping her hair. She tried to flash him a big smile when he looked back at her, but couldn't hold it for a second before breaking out in another sob. A fresh set of tears streaked down her face and she gave up her flirtations to wipe them clean. She hunched over and hugged herself.

“Are you sure? What happened?” he worriedly asked after he sat down again. She looked up into his eyes. Hers were red and puffy from crying so much. His were full of concern. She felt ashamed and looked away.

“I blew up the propane tanks,” she muttered into her shoulder. He smiled and leaned in closer, gently prompting her to repeat herself, “We shot some of the propane tanks from the armory. I fucked up,” she bitterly confessed, then sideways glanced back up at him to gauge his reaction.

At first he was confused, and asked, “Propane tanks?” before he realized what she meant. She cautiously eyed him as he broke out in a wide, pitying smile, “Hey, Julia that's okay. We hardly use propane for anything, that's how we got to have so much.”

“A lot less now,” Julia muttered and looked away. Ace got up and sat down beside her. He slung a comforting arm around her shoulders, and she got goosebumps at his touch.

“Most people don't have any propane. If you shot all our supply we'd get by just fine,” she subtly settled into his grip, pressing her body against his. He couldn't help but hug her closer. Her body was warm, and he could smell her sweet dead-flower scent. He struggled to think of something to say, to think of anything, “It'll be okay.”

She turned to look at him, their faces so close they could see nothing but each other. She had stopped crying but her eyes were still red. He kissed her. For a brief and wonderful moment Julia didn't have to think about anything. For the entirety of the kiss she could forget what happened. Then Ace pulled away and she was snapped back into reality. She tried to pull him back in but he pushed her away and stood up.

“What's wrong?” she hooked one foot around his leg and her other into his belt. She could feel how hard his cock was through his rough soldier's pants. She involuntarily bit her lip. He took a deep breath and ran his fingers through his curly hair, tried to cool down. Both of them were flushed.

“I can't do this,” he told her.

“C'mon, why not?” she pouted and rubbed his dick with her foot. Even through fabric it felt amazing but he brushed her away and stepped further back. She followed him off the cot and tried to unbuckle his belt but he grabbed her arms. She made a cute noise and squirmed.

“I can't have sex with someone who's been sexually abused!” he accidentally blurted. It stopped her cold in her tracks and he let go of her arms and stared at her crotch, “I mean, what is it even like down there? Can you even feel it?”

“It... I wasn't... I haven't...” she struggled to understand and explain. _I'm not fit for marriage_, she wanted to tell him, but didn't see how he could understand, “They-”

“It's okay. It's alright,” he reassured her, “Everyone knows about what the Twisted Hairs do. If I could stop them from ever doing it again, I would. We all would. But that just isn't how it works out here.”

“I'm sorry,” he apologized and glumly shuffled out of the barracks. Julia was left standing alone, dumbfounded. The music from the radio faded out, replaced with a quiet hiss.

Even though she wasn't allowed to participate in her old tribe's customs (not that she wanted to anymore), she wasn't aware anyone outside the tribe knew about them. All over again she felt ashamed. She had an obligation to the people she left behind, and now that she couldn't push the Rangers into taking care of it for her, she realized she had to be responsible and take care of it herself.

She never saw Pills again, but Vargas assured her that Pills was still a Ranger as he inducted her into his binder. They didn't have any sets of H3RM35 armor, the Ranger standard dating back to the days when they were just another tribe, but they did provide her with a leather outfit of higher quality than any tribal armor.

Really was there to officially welcome her into the Desert Rangers. She was so proud of her friend and protégé, and offered to go on patrol in the wasteland with her to show her the ropes some more. Julia politely declined. She already had a plan for what she was going to do, and she didn't think Really would approve. They spent one last day together at the Dam before Julia took off for good.

They never saw each other again, but they never forgot each other. Julia would always try to live up to Really's example, even though she was never quite as good at killing raiders. Really would go on to leave the Rangers after their failed war with the Legion. Although she didn't dislike the New California Republic, she wasn't eager to serve under their banner and fight for their cause, and anyway by that time she was getting on in years and couldn't fight like she used to. Eventually she gravitated towards the free community of West Vegas, and served as a guard and handywoman, keeping the crumbling buildings upright and keeping Fiends away with her lever-action rifle. She liked West Vegas, she liked the people and she liked the freedom that the people prided themselves on. Just after the second battle of Hoover Dam, well into her fifties, Really passed away quietly in her sleep, content that the Mojave Wasteland didn't need her anymore.


	68. Athena

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nevermind, this is my favorite chapter. Shout out to everybody who doesn't relate to Athena, you fucking bastards

Athena

Nearby a crow cawed and she awoke. The early morning light surrounded her with its cerulean hue. She woke up outside on the ground again. She didn't remember leaving her yurt, she didn't remember wandering the dark, she didn't remember stopping, falling to the ground and sleeping undisturbed for the rest of the night, but she knew she'd done all those things, because she'd been doing them every night for months.

Last night she sleepwalked a full four hundred yards from the village, to the edge of gecko turf. She needed to walk back home before her mother's daily visit. She hugged herself in the chill morning air. The guards on the outskirts avoided her gaze and pretended they didn't see her, but after she passed them they stared with a mixture of shame and pity. In town she walked past the home of her late husband's father. No one was awake to see her. Where she usually drew icy stares and snide put-downs instead the chill morning air and silence greeted her. She thought about spitting on the ground but decided she'd made enough empty gestures just walking past. No need to waste water.

She arrived at her yurt made of blue plastic tarp and bighorner skin. It was behind her father's house, like a shed, or a coop for livestock. Merely temporary, her father told her husband years ago. Once you're settled you'll make a proper home, for your wife and children.

She lifted the plastic flap and gazed into the dim interior. Small animal bones hung from the frame and rattled in the breeze. On the opposite end was the only furnishing, a rough hide bedding stuffed with foam that would never biodegrade, one end still stained with the blood of her miscarriage.

She laid down on the bedding, laid down in the room where her son died. She stared unblinkingly at the ceiling, and waited. It took her mother two hours to come visit her and in all that time she never moved. She sat and stewed in her loss, as she had for years.

Her mother came late in the morning, arms laden with foodstuffs. Only enough for a day or two, so she'd have an excuse to visit again soon. She brought water, too, even though Athena only had to walk to the Colorado to drink her fill. Athena didn't acknowledge Artemis' presence, didn't stare away from the ceiling until her mother finished organizing the food in order of when it was to be eaten. First she lay tomorrow's breakfast farthest from her daughter, then tonight's dinner, then next to Athena's head she sat lunch, which Athena was supposed to eat in front of her. That was the routine for years, and this morning was no different. After she set down lunch, her mother sat at the door of the yurt and waited to be acknowledged.

“Hello mother,” she used the formal word. She savored making her mother wait, and stared blankly at the ceiling for some time before speaking. It was the only control she had over their interaction.

“Hello, Athena dear,” her mother mechanically replied. Without being told to Athena sat up and began eating the mutfruit and freeze-dried apples in front of her.

“Drink the water,” Artemis commanded and her daughter complied. As part of a desperate, sad ritual she'd ordered friends and family in good health and fortune to spit in the bottle, hoping their saliva would transmit their prosperity to her daughter like a disease. For years it hadn't worked, but she didn't know what else to do. Nothing seemed to make her daughter any less of a burden on her and her husband. Although the tribe was rich by their deals with Caesar and his legion, her husband was getting older. The time was coming when their children would need to look after them, but their eldest daughter's husband made it clear Athena disgusted him, and that as long as they were providing for her he would not provide for them. It was bad etiquette, but their eldest blood son was dead. His younger brother had left for the Legion and his charity couldn't be relied upon. They had no other options. Something had to be done about Athena, and soon.

When the nameless granddaughter of Harpy left the tribe, Artemis thought she had her opportunity. For years the girl known as Arama (when she was known as anyone at all) had apprenticed under Dark Mother, the tribe healer, but once she left (_and good riddance to her,_ thought Artemis) Dark Mother needed a new apprentice. The position of tribe healer was not well-respected, but it was the best a widow with a poison womb like her daughter could hope for.

Talking to Dark Mother hadn't been fruitful. Artemis was loathe to do it (when Athena was pregnant with her dead son, Artemis forbade Dark Mother from anything to do with the pregnancy or the birth), but she was in dire need. She went to the witch's tent and after making introductions a few times with the far-eyed pariah she begged to have her daughter taken on as apprentice. Dark Mother was unmoved.

“The nameless child shall return,” she spoke. There was no doubt in her voice, not the slightest hint. Artemis was sure it was delusions, and argued that Arama's death in the wasteland was all but certain, and where it wasn't certain capture and enslavement were. Dark Mother didn't even acknowledge her arguments, and when she pressed further the woman seemed surprised to see her, as though they hadn't been talking. Artemis was discouraged, but not defeated. Where Dark Mother was unmoved, the elders would see reason, and force Dark Mother to take on a new apprentice. After all, Arama wasn't coming back, and the office of healer couldn't be vacant, no matter how derided.

Arama did come back, though. Artemis was in the process of swaying the elders, speaking to them individually when she found time. Although Harpy always had the final say, she figured if enough elders were convinced by her arguments he'd have no choice to agree to her request and in doing so tacitly admit his beloved grandchild was gone. But she came back.

“I can't believe that child is back and no one is upset!” she complained to her daughter as Athena quietly ate her lunch, “Surely someone must want answers! Someone must want penance! How can we trust her? She came back with all her hair cut off, michoo, it's such a disgrace!”

Athena knew about Arama's return and she didn't care. Although the granddaughter of Harpy was oft a source of gossip and scandal in Dry Wells, the two girls stayed clear of each other. Her mother warned her the girl would try to steal away her husband, and that she must work extra hard to not lose him to her. She took her mother's words to heart and worked extra hard to please her husband, and it seemed to work. Even though she was bloated with child and her feet hurt and her back was sore and her head was pounding she went to extra lengths to cook meals, tidy their modest home, and please him sexually. To make it easier she drank alcohol to numb the pain. She had been so proud of her efforts, her seemingly rewarded efforts. And then their son died. And then her husband died. After that, Athena didn't give a shit about Arama. But she wasn't willing to tell her mother that. Instead, she ate, and she listened, and she waited for her mother to remind her of her tragedy.

That was how every visit from her mother ended, every day. As though she forgot, as though the pain was not fresh in her memory, as though living in the yurt her son died in, on top of her dead son's blood, was not reminder enough. As though living just a few houses away from her husband's family, on either side, who every time they saw her told her their son was dead, that it was her fault despite the fact that he died on a routine raid not unlike the ones he'd participated in ever since becoming a man, as though they did not remind her enough. As though all the other women of the tribe, who shied their eyes or whispered to each other when they saw her around Dry Wells, did not remind her. As though her very reality did not seem carefully constructed to remind her every second of every day of the loss that everyone demanded define her.

“Remember to stay strong,” Artemis grasped her hands when she was finished eating and told her, “You must not let the loss of Eagle or his child to ruin your day.”

“I will, mother,” she did not look her in the eye. She sat for awhile after Artemis left, staring at the ground between her legs. As a child she relished being alone, and the feeling was only stronger with age. When she was married, her preference for solitude had waned, and she found comfort in the man (sometimes he still reminded her of a boy) that she had been paired with. But even still, she could not help but appreciate the time he was away on raids and other manly duties, and after he died her guilt about such feelings gnawed at her. The guilt was not as great as her relief at being alone, though. At least when she was by herself no one would pity her, or scorn her. She was tired of scorn and pity.

She sat in silence for awhile longer. Occasionally the wind rattled the bones of her yurt, but otherwise all was still. She listened and when she could no longer hear nearby voices she stole out of her home and slunk through the village to the outskirts again. She still vividly remembered the day she fled Dry Wells as a child, the day she earned her cruel jewelry and met the Legion for the first time. The memory was as fresh as it was when it happened ten years ago, but her fear of encountering it again was weaker than her fear of stewing in her loss. Even as it warned her to stay, she fled as she had before.

She was not quick enough, not quiet enough. Eagle's younger sister, who was still particularly affected by his death, caught her. The girl, whose name was Juniper, was carrying a bucket of water on her head, fresh from the Colorado. When she noticed Athena, her eyes went wide with fury, and she stopped to let Athena pass.

“Murderer,” she whispered to her sister-by-marriage, but otherwise did not stop her. She could not see the face her late brother's wife made, but it was twisted in anger and guilt. Athena did not look back. Juniper watched her flee at a brisk pace and spat at the tracks her feet made. Deep down, she was so scared of losing her husband too, that she could never possibly confront her fear. Deep down, she felt so sorry for Athena she couldn't help but scorn her. What else could she do? Weep forever? Not when derision was so much safer.

Athena made it to the shore and collapsed. The weight of everyone's expectations was too much. Her face in the mud, she couldn't help but smile. It was perverse and freeing. Confident in her solitude, she began to play, pretending to swim in the soft soil. She rolled around in the dirt, free and innocent like a child. She rubbed it all over her face, her body. Everything about her was ruined already, that's what they said. Dirt couldn't hurt.

She wished she could sink into the shore. She lay on her back as she had in her home but instead of hide ceiling there was the open sky, reaching out to forever. She wished she could fall upwards, fall into it and never stop falling. She made herself dizzy staring up. She rolled over on her side and vomited all the food her mother made her eat. She sat up and stared at it, the fruit and Apple chunks swirling into the soil. She crawled over to the Colorado and drank. She splashed some water on her face and sat up.

The afternoon sun beat down on her shoulders oppressive and hot, but the water from the river kept her cool. She splashed some on her face so she couldn't tell if she was crying or not. For a long time she sat and stared at the opposite shore. A gecko tentatively made its way to the water, oblivious to her presence. She thought about screaming or standing up and waving her arms to scare it off, but she let it lap from the Colorado in peace. Suddenly it gave a throaty ribbit and took off running in the splayed-leg gecko way. She couldn't help but laugh a little, and immediately felt guilty, even though no one could see her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw movement further down the shore.

Sensing it was not merely another gecko she directed her attention to it and could just barely make out some human figures. One of them was in a boat, and the other stood on the shore. Something felt wrong about the two of them, so she stood up out of the lapping waters and crept silently towards them. She slipped between the rocks and found a good vantage point from which to watch them without being seen herself. When she was closer she recognized the figures.

It was Arama, and the strange man who sometimes acted as Caesar's liaison with the Twisted Hairs. She recognized him by his wolf's-head hat. He picked a canvas bag up out of the boat and handed it to Arama, who struggled to carry it away from the river. She sat it down next to two other similar bags and returned to the Legionary. Athena snuck closer to hear what they were saying.

“...It'll be about 0100 hours, like you suggested. Sync your watch, I don't want you getting hurt,” he said without compassion. They spoke in low tones, clearly conspiring something sinister.

“Don't worry about me. Worry about you, and worry about your shit,” Arama hissed boastfully, “If these are duds I'm not going to be the one facing two hundred angry warriors.”

They grinned at each other like coyotes closing in on prey. The way they looked made Athena scared. She wasn't quite sure what was happening, but the man departed before she could learn more. Arama buried the sacks in a shallow pit and walked away with that confident swagger that drove the Twisted Hair men wild. Athena dug the bags up but didn't understand their contents, metal disks and bricks of some sort of clay. She carefully re-buried the bags and hurried away fearfully.

For the rest of the day she stayed in her yurt. On the way back into town she passed a whole gang of warriors who gave her pitying stares, but she didn't even notice. She was too concerned about what she had just witnessed, what it could possibly mean. Clearly there was some collusion between Harpy's granddaughter and the man from the Legion, but what did it mean? Why did it make the hairs on her arm stand up. She contemplated it as she chewed her dinner, roots and yucca and dried gecko. For once she didn't go to bed exhausted with grief, but her new sense of foreboding wasn't better company.

She awoke outside her yurt again, but this time she wasn't outside the village. Instead she had sleepwalked to the village center, and had fallen in front of elder Harpy's house. It was early enough in the morning that no one had seen her, and she nervously hurried back to her yurt. Inside her was some new feeling, something that made her body quiver with energy. It felt like embers being stoked in her heart, and they compelled her to do something, anything about the secret meeting she'd spied on the day before.

When her mother came by to give her food, she was alert and sitting up, waiting at the edge of her sleeping mat. Artemis was surprised to see her daughter so energized. She took it as a good sign, but continued her morning routine as she had hundreds of days before, without acknowledging her patiently waiting daughter.

“Hello mother,” Athena said when she was done laying out the foodstuffs. There was a new tone to her voice, urgent and strong.

“Hello Athena, my dear,” Artemis replied mechanically.

“Mom, I saw something yesterday I'm really worried about,” Athena launched right into her worries, catching her mother off guard with her outburst, and the way she addressed her mother in the informal way.

“I'm sure it was nothing dear,” Artemis dismissively waved her daughter's concerns away. She didn't want Athena to be any more upset than she assumed she always was.

“I saw Arama talking with the man from the Legion. I'm worried about what they're planning. It didn't sound good,” Athena pressed. The words spilled out of her like smoke from fire, “I'm worried they want to harm our family.”

“Athena, that's nonsense,” she made her mother scared. Something about the conviction behind her words shook Artemis to her core. She felt the need to nip it in the bud. Perhaps if she pretended hard enough that her daughter was being paranoid, it would come true.

Athena for her part was deeply disappointed by her mother's skepticism, especially since the day before she was calling for Arama's persecution simply for being different. Here was proof that there was something sinister behind the nameless girl's behavior, and simply because it came from Athena's mouth her mother wouldn't hear it. Her mother's discouragement was enough to tamp down the fire inside, and she numbly agreed to Artemis' half-hearted defense of Arama and the Legion liaison.

She ate her cold lunch (leftovers from her parents' hot dinner) in defeated silence. Her mother, afraid to speak out against any member of the tribe for fear her daughter would accuse them of treason next, opted to quietly watch instead of gossip as usual. She glumly appraised her daughter's mental state as even more lacking than she'd hoped. Perhaps the humane thing to do would be to send her out into the wasteland, to die of starvation. She was unwell, and there was nothing in Dry Wells that could save her.

“Remember to stay strong,” Artemis told her as she always told her when she finished eating, “You must not let the loss of Eagle or his child to ruin your day.”

She was too distracted to clasp her daughter's hands this time. Athena did not say her requisite assurance, but she didn't notice. She left without another word. For some reason that set off the spark in Athena's breast again, only this time it was from anger.

Anger took hold of Athena's heart, a deep and abiding rage so pure and righteous at first she didn't even know why she was angry, she simply embraced the flame. As it radiated through her limbs the reason made itself clear to her.

She wasn't sad. In fact, it was years since she was last sad. True, the passing of her husband and their baby was a tragedy that would mark her forever. There was no escaping that. And she had been sad for a long time afterwards. But that was four years ago. _No one can mourn forever_, she angrily asserted. For so long she'd felt, no, she'd been told to feel grief and sorrow and misery every single day.

She wasn't even a person anymore, she realized. She'd been replaced by two dead people, even though one of them wasn't even a person. Maybe someday he would've been, but he'd never been given that chance. He never had a chance to live his life and now she was being barred from living hers. She still blamed herself for his stillbirth but her anger was so righteous and all-consuming she ignored her guilt. She could blame herself all she wanted, but no one in the Twisted Hairs had any right to make her blame herself.

For a long time she felt her anger. She wanted to stand up, to leap out of her yurt and run through Dry Wells. She wanted to scream, to scream at her mother, to scream at all the mothers. To scream at everyone, to tell them that she was a person, she was not her loss. She had thoughts and feelings besides those for Eagle and her unnamed son. She didn't, though.

Instead, she quietly and carefully got up, and left her yurt. She slipped between adobe houses and hide tents and made her way to the house of her husband's parents. After she confirmed no one was home she slithered through the window. It was a simple house, one room for parents, one room for children. In the parents' room was an old metal trunk, former United States Military issue. She picked the lock with a nearby clothespin. Inside, sitting on a delicate lace table cloth was their family's ancestral weapon. Both were pre-war relics. When he was still alive Eagle had wielded the weapon on raiding missions and hunts. It was an AEP7 laser pistol, carefully maintained through generations of warriors. Eagle's younger brother was not quite old enough to use it. She took it, and the small energy cells beneath the tablecloth. She stole her way out of the house, out of the village. She hid near where she saw Arama bury the canvas bags and waited.

Later, after Dry Wells fell to Caesar's Legion, she would carry the pistol everywhere she went. Although the loss of her people would follow her forever, eventually she stopped grieving. She would never forgive Julia, but she allowed herself to stop grieving. She had the right.


	69. Harpy

Harpy  
Julia assumed reintegrating into Dry Wells would be more difficult. She assumed the Twisted Hairs would relish her absence, and be none to pleased to see her back again. Afraid of their overt dismay, the effect rejection could have on her pride and (possibly) her physical health, she stalled her return and took a slow path back. On the way she distracted herself with small projects she felt befitting a Ranger.  
She took a detour back to the fishing cabins, and was surprised to find them untouched since the night she left them. A few migratory animals had passed through and chewed a bit on the corpses of Pitch and his brother, but otherwise nothing was disturbed. She took her time exploring, investigating the cabin she hadn't entered yet. She scavenged a few more supplies, and after spending a few hours among the bodies decided they merited a proper burial. She dug a single shallow grave and dumped all three in it, but took special care with the body of the artist. She marked their grave with his sculptures, then scattered the rest tastefully around the area, arranging them in a way she felt exemplified their simple beauty. It took her an entire day.  
In her travels she also encountered a few wasteland nomads tending a herd of bighorners. After assuring them of her peaceful intentions she helped them find a few of their missing animals, and provided medical care to one of their dogs and one of their daughters. They were simple, peaceful people and they made her feel welcome among them. She told them to credit her good deeds to the Desert Rangers and accepted no payment, save the simple meal they shared together. It felt like a good start to a new life.  
When she was within a few days walk to Dry Wells, she formulated a plan for her return. The wasteland was in the season when the winds shifted and a clear path to their northernmost Anasazi neighbors opened up. She knew she would soon cross paths with a large Twisted Hair raiding party, and determined she'd receive a warmer reception if they brought her back. On the warpath she superficially injured her leg and forehead and lay down to wait.  
Her plan was an unparalleled success. At first the warriors did not recognize her without her dreadlocks, but when she started speaking the Twisted Hair language to them with her Dry Wells accent they knew she was the nameless one, Arama, the daughter of the departed Aram Hurt and granddaughter of elder Aram Harpy. She made up a sob story of her 'dangerous' journey through the wastes. She claimed she was kidnapped away but had killed her kidnappers. She claimed she had not returned immediately because of her ignorance of the area. The warriors fell for all her lies. She knew most of them intimately, and knew how to play them for fools.  
She was most concerned about Harpy. In fifteen years she never quite understood her grandfather. He wasn't like the other men of the tribe, who she could bat her eyelashes at and reduce to children. Harpy was made of granite, a man as inscrutable and immutable as stone. His face was unreadable, his actions unpredictable, and his mind unknowable. Usually he saw through her bullshit, no matter how clever she was. Lying to the warriors on patrol was easy, getting Harpy to believe her was the true challenge. She spent the entire way back, ferried on the backs of strong men, preparing for his questions. She fully expected to be interrogated like he'd interrogated her behavior her entire life. She assumed even with her experience among the Rangers and in the wasteland, he'd still be able to see right through her, and expected once again to be lined up against the wall and executed by an older man she couldn't help but respect.  
That didn't happen. When she saw Harpy at the door of the home they once shared she steeled herself and prepared mentally for the physical abuse that was sure to precede and proceed his examination. She thought she saw anger contort his face when he saw her. He quickly hobbled over to her, tossing men twice his size out of the way.  
“Michoo! Mi bella choo!” he wept and embraced her. Her hand reflexively grasped the grip of her revolver before she realized what was happening. He sobbed, openly sobbed into her shoulder. Here was the man, who for most of her life was a force of nature as terrifying and unstoppable as a tornado, an inscrutable god who controlled and coerced her and stood two-hundred feet tall, broken and weeping. Before she knew what was happening she embraced him as well, and they held each other in their arms, crying. When they parted she caught her breath and wiped her eyes.  
“I'm back,” she smiled and told him. He made a face she'd never seen him make before, a wide, tight-lipped grin, eyes closed. It was the face of a man who lost much in his life, who was scared he'd finally lost the one last thing important to him, who just discovered he hadn't. She didn't know what to make of it. She guessed it was some weird sort of pride, and she wasn't wrong, but she didn't realize he was proud of her.  
He saw she was wounded, and still untreated. He led her away from the crowd and their prying questions. She discovered he kept their home exactly as it was when she left, and felt a pang of nostalgia and regret when she saw her expensive stone table. He took some of her gauze strips from the window and began to delicately wrap her wounds, with a gentle care she'd never seen him use before. He tied off the bandage as she would, and she was surprised to see he'd paid attention to her work as healer. She always assumed he grudgingly accepted her role out of family obligation, and that he secretly disdained her profession like the rest of the tribe. Looking around the room, though, she realized he'd always supported her. Even at great personal cost he'd supported her interest.  
“Thank you, grandfather,” she said and he bowed his head humbly. She offered to cook them a meal and he gratefully accepted her offer. He was so overjoyed he could barely speak. It made her deeply uncomfortable. Not his silence, which she was well accustomed to, but she was so unfamiliar with her grandfather's happiness it seemed to her that he was an entirely different person.  
Fortunately, after they ate the other foot dropped, and he returned to the sour old man she grew up with. Over the years he had come to accept what he considered inappropriate or reckless behavior from his granddaughter, and he explained that he had learned to live with it because she had yet to cause any real harm.  
“Now I see I gave you too much opportunity. Too much freedom,” he said, “From now on, you will do as I say. You will not leave the house until I give my permission, and you will not speak to others unless I have told you it is alright. I expect you to be by my side at all times, and when you are not with me I expect you to be at home, receiving no visitors.”  
Julia expected this. Strict punishment made much more sense to her than love and acceptance. She was surprised it took him an entire meal to levy stringent restrictions on her behavior. At any moment she expected him to pull out a slave collar bartered from the Legion and demand she wear it. Or maybe shackles, to shackle her to him. It was more a testament to his softening in his old age that he expected her to follow his orders without them, than any respect he might have for her. She quietly acquiesced to his demands.  
“Good. There will be no more running off. I only say these things to protect you, michoo. To keep you safe,” he accepted her acquiescence without suspicion, which was all the better for her because she intended to follow absolutely none of his rules. She successfully got Harpy to swallow her first lie. First and second, really, although she didn't have to do a single thing to get him for to fall for the first. He just assumed she was back for good.  
For three whole days he made good on his promise to keep her by his side at all times. He even made her sleep in his room. When she complained about sharing a bed with his pointy elbows and knees he dragged her mattress off its frame and drug it to his floor. In the morning he woke her up and made her follow him into the foyer while he brewed coffee. She joked that he couldn't expect her to join him for his old-man shits and he gave her a look that made it perfectly clear that was the expectation. Domineering bastard she thought. He actually ended up ordering her to stay in the house while he did his shits, but he actually made her relieve herself in front of him. When she protested he told he used to watch her all the time as a child, and now was no different. She decided to just be happy to be relieved of his terrible-smelling morning bowel movement.  
Most of Harpy's day consisted of bullshitting with other old men, reminiscing about better days, and complaining about the youth. At first, Julia resented them. Harpy wouldn't let her practice any medicine; he turned away at least three people who came to her for aid and told them to consult Dark Mother. She really hated that. To forgo providing help so she could sit around and listen to men she hated talk about things she didn't care about, about people she never knew because they died before she was born. They drank while they talked, and when she refused an offer of their alcohol Harpy told her not to be rude and made her drink a shot. She felt bullied as she lifted the shotglass to her lips and choked back tears when all the men cheered. The brown liquid was harsher than the fine bourbon Thrasher drank, it burned the back of her throat and made her cough. Harpy patted her on the back and smiled. She wanted to bash his face in with a rock. She used to chide the elders for pissing away disinfectant.  
She sat in sullen silence while the men laughed and gossiped and complained and drank. She imagined doing horrible things to each man in turn. Elder Hoskie she'd gut like a gecko. Then she'd pull out his intestines and use them to hang Elder Sam. Elder Water Over Stones she'd sneak up behind and bash in the head, catch him unawares and kill him before he knew what was happening. She'd quick and cleanly cut Elder Shash's throat in his sleep, but she'd tie Elder Jasper to a rock and feed him his own feet after starving him a week. As for her grandfather, she wanted to shoot him in the face.  
After they shot the shit for half the day, the elders played horseshoes with some of the younger men fresh from hunting. They were all Raven's friends, but she was relieved to discover Raven was not among them. She didn't know he'd joined the Legion shortly after her disappearance, and ever since she returned she'd dreaded seeing him again. The elders shared their liquor with the hunters, who gave their kills to their wives to be dressed and cooked. The young men were uncomfortable with Julia's presence at their games, but no one dared question the will of Harpy. Most just stared at her, at her body, not that she cared. Every once in awhile the Elders forced her to take another drink so that by the time the young hunters joined them for horseshoes she felt drunk. She tried to flirt with a few, but all of them were too scared of her grandfather to reciprocate. At the end of the day Harpy had to carry her home.  
The next morning she felt terrible, and when he woke her up she asked if she could just stay in the house all day. She promised to stay inside and talk to no-one, in fact she would be happy to stay inside and talk to no-one.  
“No,” was all Harpy said, and that was that. They drank coffee in the morning, and he forced her to eat breakfast, then he dragged her to a war meeting with the young warriors of the tribe, who were also uncomfortable at her presence.  
Unlike the day before her obsequiousness was not an act, and she followed Harpy's orders to the letter. When she asked for permission to go throw up he handed her a metal bucket and told her to use it, and not to leave his side as she did so. She complied, and he discussed raiding the Manti-La for slaves over the metallic echo of her vomiting. After assault preparations were made he took her to a meeting over provisions, and distributing surplus to tribe members in need. A family was accused of hording food, with some rotten meat as evidence. The elders decreed that the offending family should not have enough food to let any rot, and as punishment they were to hand over all their foodstuffs. Their larder was to be dictated by the elder council henceforth, who parsed out a little less than the whole family needed. When they could be trusted again to share, they would be allowed to manage their own food. Julia couldn't help but be interested in the politics of the tribe, and followed the verdict intently. When it was over and she and her grandfather were alone, she argued on behalf of the accused family, claiming the evidence against them was insufficient, but Harpy shut her down.  
“When you know want, you will understand our justice,” he patronized her. She tried to launch into an argument for impartiality and avoiding bias based on personal history but he cut her off with a hand gesture before she could make her first point. She went back to sulking for the rest of the day. Fortunately, she wasn't forced to drink anymore. They had a quiet evening at home. Julia cooked dinner, then they played backgammon with bottlecaps. Although her hangover cleared up in the evening, she didn't bother trying to sneak out. She was content to let the day slip away.  
The third day was much the same as the first. They boys out raiding the Manti-La wouldn't be back for another couple days, and there wasn't much else for the elders to do, so they sat around or played games. Elder Jasper made a crack about her reluctance to drink, and she almost snapped and attacked him right then and there. What stopped her was Harpy. To her surprise, he defended her, and called Jasper's own drinking habits to question, and also implied with no small derision that his alcoholism cost him a victory in combat as a younger man. To Julia's even greater surprise, Jasper didn't get mad at Harpy's remark, and instead followed it up with an insult directed at Harpy. Without warning, the other elders contributed their own insults directed at her venerable grandfather, a long string of them, some of them so vile even at her angriest she wouldn't dare sling them at him. And he laughed.  
“Eh heh heh, not too fond of us trashing your precious grandfather, eh child?” Water Over Stones ribbed her when he noticed her shocked expression.  
“Oh, no. Naw, I'll just have to think of something new the next time we're arguing,” she quipped. The elders all had a hearty laugh at her disrespect, even her grandfather. After a moment gauging their reaction, she couldn't help but join in herself. It felt good to laugh. She couldn't remember the last time she'd had a good laugh at Dry Wells. Probably before Heart was sent away.  
Once she realized she was allowed speak her mind among the elders, she started to feel much better. After jokes and smalltalk she even got to argue for the family they condemned yesterday, and for a more impartial justice system. Some of the elders even seemed intrigued by her ideas. They all drank more, and since she no longer felt coerced into it she drank more freely. Thankfully, she didn't make an ass of herself, and she and her grandfather left in good spirits, although they didn't exchange a single word on the walk home.  
“We can move your mattress back into your room,” her grandfather offered before he went to sleep. She was already on top of it, having collapsed as soon as she made it in the room.  
“N'm okay,” she drunkenly mumbled. She belched once and fell into dreamless sleep.  
She woke up alone. Her grandfather was already up, made his coffee and left. She assumed he still expected her to follow his restrictions, and not leave or accept visitors. She disguised some cloth to make it look like she was still asleep under her scratchy blanket and slipped out, still drunk.  
She knew exactly who she was looking for but she didn't know where to find him. She scoured the outskirts of town, figuring she'd spot him lurking about. He wasn't by the river, he wasn't by the road, and he wasn't by the pre-war building rotting to the south. She cursed her apathy towards the Legion. If she'd only been a bit more interested before she left she might know how to contact them without risking her grandfather's wrath. Instead, she spent the whole day wandering around like a jackass and no closer to enacting her plans.  
When Harpy returned home he asked her what she'd done all day, and she told him she'd sat around nursing a hangover (Which wasn't entirely untrue. At about noon the alcohol turned on her and she felt less-than-excellent). He took her at her word. She made him dinner and tried to avoid further questions, but after they ate and she felt better she asked him what he did all day.  
“Mostly dealt with the damn Legion,” he grumbled. She dropped her head on the stone table in defeat and he jumped and asked, “What? What's wrong?”  
“Nothing,” she whined into the stone and he didn't press further. He wanted to complain about Caesar's man so he continued as though she wasn't acting strangely.  
“Sour bastard,” he said, “Wanted a full report on the Manti-La. Told him all our info on that area is a year old, at least. We just sent everyone who knows it best on a raid for slaves, they'll be back in a couple days and we'll have good intel then. Said he wants it now. Told me, 'Caesar doesn't care for disrespect,' he says. 'Caesar's punishments for those who disappoint him are grave indeed,' he says. Fucking soft-hands asshole. Hisses like a diamondback. Slithers like one, too.”  
Once again Julia was surprised at her grandfather's openness. For fifteen years he'd kept her in the dark about his business, even when she expressed an interest. Admittedly, she hadn't expressed much of interest. She wondered if his secrecy and reserve had more to do with her assumptions than his intent. Had he been willing to reach out to her, if only she'd reached out to him first? It was too late to speculate. She had a mission to perform, her plan to execute.  
“Where does the man from the Legion stay? Certainly we keep him at a distance, right?” she pressed.  
“Of course we keep that snake at a distance! Don't want him watching our women and children, getting ideas,” he contemptuously snarled, before he rebuffed her, “Don't you worry about him. Best leave the Legion to the men.” She couldn't ask any further, lest she arouse his suspicions.  
Everything fell into place, anyway. In less than a week her grandfather was already complacent enough to let her get away with whatever she wanted, and she was familiar enough with his psyche to know what he considered arm's length. After another day shooting the shit with his friends, she snuck away. At the ancient ruined Dam south of Dry Wells she found the man from Caesar's Legion. Vulpes Inculta.


	70. Vulpes Inculta

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW: graphic depiction of torture

Vulpes Inculta

“Well, well, well. From the way the men of your tribe talk, I figured I'd see you sooner,” he said with a sneer, “But you can forget it. I don't sully myself with diseased profligates.”

“Charming,” she recovered quick after a brief panic (that maybe he knew she was ground zero for a clap outbreak a couple years ago), “I can understand why you're so popular among the elders.”

He continued to sneer condescendingly at her, but refused to respond. He had thin lips and his face reminded her of a bird. Not because he had a particularly prominent beak, but the way his angular bone structure was both beautiful and menacing at the same time. He radiated cool authority, yet she wanted to punch him more than anything. It was as though his smug pout was a magnet for her fist. The compulsion was rooted deep in the basic forces of nature.

“Then again, with a smile like that you must be popular with everyone,” she probed, “That's why you're out here on such a cushy gig, right? Golden son of the Legion gets the best jobs?”

His sneer turned crueler, more teeth and less already-meager lip. It made him look harsher, less bird-like and more coyote-like. Deep in his stillwater eyes she saw a hatred so foul and consuming she knew exactly why he'd been assigned to the Twisted Hairs. There was no diplomacy to the man at all, just pure cold calculation. He wasn't at Dry Wells to talk, he was there to ferret out weakness and exploit it. Exactly the man she wanted to talk to.

“Clearly the pinnacle of Legion excellence, come to convince all us profligates the error of our shameful ways, here to shine the light of Caesar,” not without her fun first, though. Although the man's reedy build made him an odd shape for the Legion, it was obvious he had his own lean strength. Although the way he reacted to her insults made it clear he was insecure about his place among the Legion's brutes, no man among Caesar's soldiers lacked fitness. It was overconfidence that provoked her into goading him further. She did have some protection, since killing her would almost certainly destroy any relationship the Legion had with Dry Wells.

“Then again, maybe our proud warriors have swung you the other way. There must be some reason you enjoy the company of other men so much,” was enough to provoke him into attacking her, diplomacy be damned. He easily overpowered her, a small teenage girl, and threw her to the ground. He held his lawnmower-blade machete to her throat, dagger knee pinning her chest, hatred blazing in his eyes.

She laughed.

“What?” she threw him off his guard. The sound of her laughter unsettled him to his very core, and he was so startled he almost jumped off her in shock. Instead he merely loosened his grip and moved his knee off the tiny teenager (he himself was not that much older).

“Yeah, you got all the diplomacy of a soldier,” she flashed her impressively-maintained teeth at him. Vulpes frowned again, embarrassed by his behavior. He stood up and let her out of his grasp. She told him, “Relax. I'm a friend.”

“You have an... odd way of showing it,” he couldn't help but smile. He had a thin, mean smile. Every part of his behavior was off-putting, but he still helped her up.

“Look, this whole treaty thing isn't sitting well with his glorious eminence, right?” she dusted herself off. He cautiously nodded. He glanced around, not yet sure whether he could trust her or not. She made him deeply, deeply uncomfortable. Her behavior was unpredictable and he couldn't figure out her angle. He prided himself on his ability to read people, but she was completely throwing him off. He couldn't tell where she stood, or what she stood to gain. She seemed to know too much, much more than he would ever expect from a young tribal. It made him nervous.

“He sent you because he wants to bring Dry Wells and by extension the Twisted Hairs under his banner. You're here to probe for weakness and everyone can tell,” she said.

“... Actually, I'm supposed to be here as cover for another operation nearby,” he admitted tentatively, “... But Caesar would be very pleased if I managed to break the Twisted Hairs. You're right, the treaty doesn't make him as happy as capitulation would.”

He settled against the exposed steel girder he'd been slouching on when she approached him. He figured the Twisted Hairs were as wary of pissing Caesar off as he was wary of pissing off their elders, and it afforded him some protection. Since he had been conspicuously looking for an advantage, as he always was, her assertion the Twisted Hairs were wise to him rang true, so as long as she was being forthright with him he could be a little forthright with her.

“Well, fuck your other job. From now on you work for me and we're bringing down the Twisted Hairs,” she told him on no uncertain terms. He smugly scoffed at her presumptuousness, but she held firm. She was absolutely serious, and she wanted him to know. For her plan to work they needed to trust each other. At least, he needed to trust her.

“And what makes you think I'll follow your orders, just like that,” he snapped his fingers mockingly when he realized she was absolutely serious, “Surely you know no Legionary will ever take orders from a woman.”

He spit the last word with venom. It was her turn to condescendingly sneer at him. They locked eyes and stared each other down. He stood at least a foot taller than her and she could feel it in his gaze. In her eyes was atomic power, but he was too blinded by his prejudice to see it. She could tell locking horns with him would get her nowhere, so she looked away and directed his attention to Dry Wells, invisible past rocky cliffs.

“I don't know what you're doing in your other operation, but whatever it is won't be as juicy a mutfruit as Dry Wells. Right now you have no fucking chance of breaking the Twisted Hairs, and in fact you're such a piece of shit negotiator you might even fuck up what little Caesar has now,” she looked back at him, but he focused on the distance, “But I grew up here, and I know every weakness those bastards try to keep hidden. I have all the inside information you could ever want. You want to bring the Twisted Hairs back to Caesar? You need to work with me, and you need to follow my lead.”

“Unless you think some man is gonna come down here and give you the same sweet deal I'm offering,” she mocked. Already she could tell she had him convinced, she could see the wheels turn in his chalk-white head. Even though he was Legion she could tell he was more practical and conniving than the average Legion thug, she saw it when she first laid eyes on his lanky frame. All in all, it was to her advantage that the Legion had sent a man with greater than average cunning.

“Alright,” he said after a long minute spent chewing her proposition over, “Tell you what. You kill one of your tribesmen for me, and prove to me you did it, you have a deal. Until then, if you bother me again, I'll pop your eyes out of your sockets, cut your tongue out, and sew your lips shut.”

His voice was completely level and monotone as he told her the terms of his assistance. No histrionics, no chest thumping show of force, not even a casual calling of attention to the weapon tied to his power-cord belt by a bit of brahmin leather. A prosaic statement of intent, a verbal contract in clear language. He didn't even blink when she immediately agreed to it. In a flash she was gone, racing back to the village before Harpy got home.

That night while they played backgammon on her expensive stone table she asked him how his day was. He grumbled something about cheating at horseshoes and slid a Nuka-Cola bottlecap two spaces further. She asked him a more specific question, if elder Jasper complained about his knee. Harpy was caught off guard by her interest, and admitted that yes, Jasper had complained about his knee, quite a bit. Especially while they played horseshoes.

“How did you guess?” he asked her.

She told him the story of how she used to drain elder Jasper's knee of fluid every couple of weeks. Otherwise it would swell up and put a lot pressure on his joints, to the point where he couldn't bend it if left untreated. He speculated that since Jasper was still mobile even though she hadn't given him treatment in a year he must be draining his own fluid now. She didn't tell her grandfather that while she treated him he would often tell her crude jokes, and referred to her 'sweet ass' frequently. Once he actually groped her thigh, but she slapped him away and told him don't. She assumed that would be enough, and the next time he visited her he didn't say much as she treated the inflammation. When she was finished and he was back on his feet, though, he grabbed her roughly by the waist and pulled her to him. He managed to kiss her on the neck with his chapped lips before she reached under him and gripped his scrotum, applying enough pressure to turn coal into diamond. He immediately let go of her and tried to pry her off, but she whipped out her knife and held it to his throat. She nicked him a little to let him know she was serious.

“Cut your knee and squeeze it out yourself from now on. If you ever try to talk to me again, I'll tell my grandfather you tried to fuck me, and he'll cut them off. If you ever come back here again, I'll cut them off myself. I know where you live, Jasper,” she hissed at him and gripped his balls even tighter to punctuate her message. She was thirteen. After that he indeed drained his own fluid.

“The people don't need you anymore,” Harpy told her, “They can take care of themselves now.”

“We'll see,” she told him, and won their game. She was patient, but she didn't have to wait long at all before Harpy was proven wrong.

The raid on the Manti-La was a stirring success, leading to the capture of a great deal of food, some gun parts and ammunition, and three healthy slaves. No Twisted Hairs were seriously injured in the attack, but on the long road back one young man lost his footing and tumbled down a steep incline. The war party made the slaves carry him back on a stretcher rigged up with animal skin and metal poles. He was in bad shape; they didn't do anything to treat his wounds for the entire difficult trip. The whole way back he passed in and out of consciousness and they couldn't tell if he was alive or dead except when he moaned in pain. In defiance of elder Harpy his companions brought him straight to Julia.

She was with her grandfather on the shore of the Colorado, collecting water for their house. He was making her carry both buckets all by herself because carrying water buckets “is women's work,” and she needed to learn how to be a woman. When she angrily pointed out that she'd never be a “woman” in the eyes of the tribe, and she had him to thank for it, he told her that was inconsequential. He told her she needed to build character, and they got into a screaming argument by the river. She tried to storm off but he grasped her tightly by the wrist and reminded her that she was beholden to his authority, and she could leave when he let her leave. She took a deep breath and carried two buckets of water back to her grandfather's house. She was about to haul another two buckets out of the river when the war party approached.

All of the boys came to see her. They walked up to the shore and stopped about ten feet away. Harpy greeted them warmly but he didn't understand what was happening. Usually war parties stopped in the center of the village so that their spoils could be distributed evenly. They stood patiently in a tight mass as they carried the wounded warrior over their shoulders and set him down on the sand like an offering. Julia pretended she didn't know what was going on, but as soon as Harpy saw the young man in the stretcher his face bloated in rage.

“Take him to Dark Mother! Do not bother my grandchild with your bullshit!” he screamed and waved them away violently. If he had a weapon she was sure he would have attacked them, despite a decade-and-change wearing his bones thinner than the lot of them. He snarled like a rabid dog, “My granddaughter is no longer tribe prostitute!”

The war party was unfazed. Their brother-in-arms was going to die unless he received Julia's skilled care, and even then his odds of making it to next year were not great. If she wasn't allowed to see him, they might as well bash his brains in right there on the beach. One of them held up a rock for the implicit purpose.

“No! No more! Away! Away with all of you!” Harpy screamed, with each word growing less intimidating and more desperate. She could see tears well up in the corners of his eyes. She stopped pretending to gather water and walked up to him. She put her arm gently on his shoulder.

“Grandfather,” she whispered softly. His shoulders slumped, defeated. He stopped trying to chase the warriors away, but stared down at his feet and said nothing at all. His harsh features softened into a sad frown, like erosion on the weather-beaten cliffs surrounding the village. He could bully his granddaughter around all he wanted, but ultimately he was beholden to the will of the tribe .

“Take him to my house. Place him on the stone table. I will be with you shortly,” she ordered the war party, and they solemnly complied. She gathered fresh, pure water in both her buckets and began to lug them back to the house. She stopped and turned to face her grandfather, who had not moved since she calmed him. She told him to come along with her, and for the first time ever he followed her orders.

The wounded warrior was in very bad shape. She could tell from only a cursory glance that his legs were broken, and not only that but the muscles of his thighs had burst like a crushed orange, leaving long, sinister gashes that had lain open to the harsh wasteland air for days. The rest of his battered frame looked no better, mostly bruises and cuts and skin stretched at odd angles over splintered bone. She was surprised he was even still alive, which she confirmed by checking his pulse and listening to his shallow breathing. He had lost most of his blood, and he had a fever.

It was too easy. She told his peers and her grandfather to give them space, and her grandfather agreed. He ordered the war party out into the village center to distribute their spoils. Even though they were still close by, the frenzied activity of their triumphant return might as well have been a thousand miles away from Julia and her patient.

“Too easy, too easy,” she complained as she mopped his brow with a rag. She clucked her tongue, “You had to make this too easy on me, hmmm?”

She examined him some more, took thorough stock of the damage done. She didn't bother with any painkiller. Although he barely reacted at all she was sure he could feel the cruel way she caressed his broken bones. Delirious, he whimpered, and she gently slapped his cheek a little in a mocking approximation of care.

“It's okay sweetie, you can scream all you want,” she whispered in his ear, and by the pained expression on his face felt comfortable he understood. It was cathartic for her, to finally embrace the role of butcher after years spent working desperately to shed the image. There would be no anesthesia this time, there would be no bedside manner, no holding back. Not for this patient, who had the misfortune of hurting himself with the worst possible timing.

First she set the broken bones in his legs. That woke him up. His bones were so mangled from the fall and left to try and knit themselves together at odd angles she had to muscle the pieces around so they'd line up. When she forced his fibula back together he jolted in pain and made a whine like a siren. When she set his tibia back in a line he tried to roll away from the pain but she held his leg tight.

“If you keep moving like that, you're only going to make it harder on yourself,” she told him with a huge smile on her face, but her eyes were all menace. She licked her lips as she examined his pained expression, the pure agony as beautiful to her as the setting sun over the river Colorado. When she examined his soft kneecap with her index finger he actually screamed in pain. She playfully told him that real men don't scream like little girls and continued to examine him thoroughly.

The boy was in bad shape, there was no doubt about it. Upon analysis of his infected cuts she realized there was no saving the leg she just set.

“Hmmm, bad news, boy,” she told him. She pulled her bonesaw out of storage, tested it's sharpness on her finger. She licked her blood from the small cut it left behind. She admitted to him, “Never used this without anesthesia before. Gonna have to tie you down.”

She didn't have anything to tie him to, so she just bound his arms to his sides. He squirmed in agony as she wrapped the scratchy rope around what was almost certainly a whole sternum of broken ribs. She gave him a piece of plastic to bite down on. She didn't know what to do about the leg she wasn't sawing off, so he tried to kick her away as she hacked through his upper thigh. She had to lie down across both his legs as she sawed. When she was finished he spat the plastic out of his mouth and screamed long and horrible. She'd tied a tourniquet around the leg to close off bloodflow, but she needn't have bothered. He had so little blood left only an emaciated trickle burbled out and collected on the stone in a puddle the size of a bottlecap. As she sawed she left a piece of metal to heat up on her grandfather's electric hotplate and when she was finished she gingerly picked it up with a rag and cauterized his wound. The smell of burnt flesh filled the room, and she savored the crackling sound of his leg and the howling sound of his agony. She disinfected the scratches on his remaining leg (he couldn't even feel it, not after the hot metal) and then wrapped it in a splint, carefully unspooling her finest roll of cloth bandage, the one that had never been used before.

Then she disinfected his other abrasions while he writhed in pain. She applied so much alcohol she could her it sizzle and burn in his raw wounds. It was the only way to get him to react. She taunted his suffering again, advising him to quit being such a baby lest she really start treating him roughly. The fact that she couldn't treat the boy any worse made her smile even harder.

He needed blood, and since she didn't want to be bothered with any of the tribesmen whooping it up just outside her door, she worked up a transfusion with herself as the donor. She wrapped up his wounds in her virgin bandages then by means of a plastic tube and two needles began to give him her blood. She didn't know her blood type, and she didn't know his blood type, but she figured it didn't really matter. She worked out an IV drip of saline and stuck it in him, too, since he was so dehydrated.

To her surprise, her efforts bore fruit. In just an hour he already looked much better, although he still had a bad fever. He was wrapped head-to-toe in bandages, and his leg was gone, and she'd given him nearly a full pint of blood she didn't even know would make home in his veins, but he had some color back and his breathing was more regular. He passed out from pain shortly after she wrapped his cuts, but he seemed to be sleeping thereafter and she took that as a good sign. Not that it mattered. She was going to murder him either way, she simply wanted to prove that she could save him. That way when she killed him it was absolutely deliberate. She wanted to secure Vulpes' assistance, but she also needed to prove to herself one final time before she went through with betraying and destroying her people that she could kill any one of them with no hesitation and no regrets.

And she could. She tied his testicles off after she removed the direct line between their hearts. She held the cold steel of her knife to his scrotum and he didn't react. Perhaps he wouldn't have pulled through after all. She cut off his nuts and his body made motion to fight back but had no energy left. She tied his testicles off in a small cloth bag and set it aside, then removed the IV drip from his arm and stuck it straight into his lung. In a matter of minutes he was convulsing on the stone table, flopping around like a fish and drowning in his own lungs. She watched his death throws without blinking, and with an absolutely terrifying grin.

No one questioned why he was dead. Why would they? He was dead long before she got her hands on him. None of them noticed he was missing his scrotum. They were too distracted by his absence of a leg. She was blamed for his death, of course, but his mother and his wife and everyone else who blamed Julia didn't know they were right, and that was just as good as being wrong. The boy received the last Twisted Hair funeral at Dry Wells.

Since her grandfather was so pissed at his authority being undermined it took her another two days to escape him and meet with Vulpes Inculta, although he already heard about the boy's death when he met with the Manti-La war party for information and to buy the slaves they brought back. Out of respect for elder Harpy the war party left out Julia's involvement. On his way out of the village, though, the boy's mother caught him by the arm. He was stopped from throwing her off in revulsion by her revelation that the nameless one, the whore of the tribe, was responsible for her son's death, and that the warriors were too scared of the whore's grandfather to tell Vulpes the truth. She begged him to make sure the nameless one was punished by Caesar for her treachery, and he assured her Arama would face her just reward, then cast her off and marched out of town wearing an unpleasant sneer.

She approached him at the site and he couldn't help but smile his mean-lipped smile when he saw her. He told her she better have proof of a murder for him, even though he knew she went through with one. He even drew his machete and fingered the blade. She tossed the cloth bag at him and he caught it and pulled out its contents.

“What is this?” he asked her.

“Proof,” she sneered at him, then clarified, “It's my victim's ballsack.”

He dropped the severed testes in disgust and shock. He wiped his hand on his armor, and was about to dive it into the cool waters of the Colorado but she grabbed and shook it, “So we have a deal, then.”

“I suppose we do,” he reluctantly agreed. His dismay at being outmaneuvered by her again was tempered by his already-coalesced plot to betray her as she betrayed her people. He pictured the violations that would be perpetrated on her young, supple body to relax. Despite his earlier assertion that he wouldn't stoop to satisfying himself with her sex, he seriously considered raping her once their plan was completed. _Certainly she's quite attractive_, he admitted to himself and subconsciously ran his finger up and down his blade while they decided the future of the Twisted Hairs.


	71. Julia

Julia

The charges were all set and Vulpes and his men were in position. Julia finished up around midnight, which left her an hour to prepare. Her part of the plan was over. She made sure that Vulpes needed her up until the last second, since he so obviously intended to screw her over as soon as he could, possibly literally. Once she proved she was serious he'd started to look at her differently, and she wasn't naive enough to miss the lust buried deep in his dead eyes. She had no illusions about who she was dealing with, and if she didn't still have personal business she'd leave Dry Wells behind and leave the Twisted Hairs to their fate. That would probably be the wiser decision, but she wasn't Vulpes. In her own fucked-up way she cared about the tribe that raised her. If she didn't she wouldn't have bothered to come back from the Dam, and she wouldn't be selling them out to Caesar. When everything was done and her success was all but assured she still had to go back.

Her first order of business was putting clothes on. That was easy. In advance of her plan she stole back her custom leather armor (confiscated by Harpy when he dressed her superficial, self-inflicted sympathy wounds) and secreted it out to the campgrounds during the day. The benefits were two-fold, one it meant she didn't have to go back to Dry Wells until she had everything she needed, and second it meant that when she stripped off her canvas bag of a dress at the campgrounds she did so knowing she'd never have to put the damned thing on ever again, and that definitely helped her get in the mood. The second order of business, once the boys went back to their posts and she slipped into her armor, was to recover her weapons. Before she hurt herself in the path of the Twisted Hair raiders she hid her handcannon revolver with the silver snake grips and the greasegun she could actually shoot without getting thrown to the ground. At the time they seemed easily recoverable, but now that she needed them they might as well have been back at the Dam. Luring the guards to the campgrounds was a matter of precedent (the old picnic tables were long a popular spot for Twisted Hairs to sneak away and conduct affairs, although the practice had fallen out of favor once Julia started participating. Even though the place was used exclusively in betrayal of their marriages, the place was still considered exclusive to 'married' people) but she also chose it as a matter of practicality, as it was north of the village and therefore a little bit closer to her beloved guns. Even still it took her thirty minutes to reach her stash.

She rushed back after she checked the nice watch Vulpes gave her (to sync the assault) and realized how little time she had left. In her hurry she was much less cautious, and already drained of electrolytes, she took one of the tumbles she'd narrowly avoided on her way up. It wasn't as bad as the dead boy's, but it didn't feel good. She lost her over-sized fishing hat in the brush, and she gave her leg a nasty scrape. Although her leg was sore she determined it wasn't broken and continued to limp back to Dry Wells at an advanced clip. The pain from her leg and the desperation to get back before the C4 went off kept her from obsessing any more over the plan. At first she'd been more worried about whether she should just leave, but thinking about that led to reconsidering the C4, and reconsidering her deal with Vulpes, and reconsidering destroying the Twisted Hairs at all. After all, who was she to decide this was the end of the tribe? Sure, there were plenty of things she hated about her people, and she imagined there were plenty of reasons to align with Caesar, but it only occurred to her this late in the plan how she'd decided she was arbiter of their fate, and that maybe she'd given herself too much authority in doing so. The doubts swirled in her brain like the churning eddies of the Colorado, but the pain in her leg drowned them all until all she thought about was getting back to Dry Wells as fast as possible.

Even with her injury she found it easier to return to the village of her birth than to leave it, but she still only barely made it back. The guard that just an hour ago had pulled her hair even though she asked them all not to was asleep at his post. The path she took into town was supposed to be cut off by rubble like all the others but she disconnected the detonator on her way past. She wondered if the guard, when the time came, would be aware and take advantage of his luck, but she doubted it. A little further ahead, but not in town proper, was Dark Mother's hovel. As she passed she whispered, “This is for you.”

Inside Dark Mother, tormented by restless dreams, stirred from sleep. She didn't know why, but the feeling of overwhelming dread consumed her, to the point that she had to leave her crude yurt and calm herself in the still night air.

She hugged herself in the breeze from the river and the village exploded. When Dark Mother was a young girl, she'd fallen in the river without knowing how to swim. She was rescued by her older brother, but not before she felt what it was really like to drown. The roar of the water swirling around her head as she struggled for breath was exactly the same sound the C4 made when it detonated, so much so that for a moment she assumed the river had swelled without warning and consumed Dry Wells.

She thrashed around on the ground in fear before she realized she wasn't underwater, that people were screaming and the village was on fire. The guard stationed near her hovel helped her up and then rushed into Dry Wells without a word, wild-eyed and just as scared as her. Nearby a child screamed, naked and alone, illuminated by the fire. As she stared at it in horror she realized its right hand was completely gone, and it was holding the bloody stump with its other hand. A man ran to the shore with a bucket but before he could dip it in the water a pole with a loop on the end appeared out of nowhere and caught him by the neck. He fell to the ground and two men stepped out of the fire itself and began to beat him with clubs. She recognized their armor, the red and black leather of the Legion. More Legionaries emerged from the fire and she saw them beat more of her tribe away from the river, back into the flaming village. One of the Legionaries had the head of a coyote, and he ordered the others to corral her people into the center of the village. Almost all of the Twisted Hairs of Dry Wells were now trying to reach the water, but the coyote-man forced them all back, back into the fire and the screaming and the horror.

“You are scared of your homes burning,” the coyote with the body of a man barked, “But these are not your homes any more! They are Caesar's homes. And Caesar wants them to burn!” Dark Mother smelled rubber and plastic and bodies burning. A child, a young boy, tried to slip past the Legionaries but with one swift motion a Legionary lopped the boy's head off. It rolled down the shore and into the water, and a woman screamed a primal howl of grief as her son's body fell lifeless at the soldier's feet. Dark Mother acted without thought, so consumed with fear. She fled north, fled up the path Julia left open for her own escape.

When Harpy was thrown from bed by the timed demolition, his first thought was of his granddaughter. He rushed to her room only to find it empty, to his horror. He burst out of his house, screaming her nickname over the wails of his people and the crackle of fire. He thought he saw her dart between two houses and gave chase, continuing to futilely scream the only name he knew her by. The village was a living nightmare. Mothers wept over corpses mangled by the blasts, infants screamed in the dirt. A warrior he recognized scrambled madly through the chaos and grabbed Harpy by the arm. The elder instructed him to get a bucket, get men, get to the river, and put out the fires. The old man had to keep his cool with the whole world collapsing all around him, but more than anything he had to find his family. Everything was fine as long as Arama was safe.

He chased her shadow all the way to the edge of the village, opposite the river. She sat calmly on a rock, wiping her gun with a cloth. She'd led the old man somewhere they could have some privacy. He didn't notice her gun or her calm before he ran up to her and bellowed, “Arama! Thank the ancestors, you're alright! We need to help extinguish these fires!”

When she ignored him and continued to fiddle with her submachine gun he became impatient. He shouted at her, “Child! Our people are in danger! Do not ignore me! I am your grandfather and you shall do as I say!”

She pointed her gun at the ground in front of him and fired off a little squirt. He jumped back and fell to the ground in surprise. She rose from her rock, slowly and deliberately, and in the light of the fire she was true horror, an angel of vengeance unleashed. Harpy watched her with dawning terror, the little girl he'd raised now something so dark and powerful he could no longer understand it. She pointed the barrel of her gun right at his forehead and said, “No.”

Harpy pissed himself. Here he was, the man who for more than a decade had made her life hell. Who embodied every cruelty, every injustice, every indifference and isolation and marginalization that she'd ever been put through by the tribe, cowering on the ground, covered in his own urine. Afraid of her. She remembered every time he whipped her with a belt, every time he locked her in the wardrobe, every time he trusted the word of others over her's, every time he mocked her, or bullied her, or was just plain mean. And behind him, an entire world of mockery, cruelty, and petty slights carried out against her because she was different. Because she wanted more, for herself and her people. Because she had hope, and she believed in the future. Well, now they didn't have a choice. She was bringing her tribe into the future, kicking and screaming. _It didn't have to be this way, _she rationalized, _but they forced my hand_.

“Arama, michoo,” Harpy started, and Julia fired some more bullets into the ground. He flinched, but got up on his knees and continued.

“Please, my beloved granddaughter, don't do this. Please. I know, I know you're angry. And you have every right,” she was about to finish this, but his words stopped her cold. She expected him to beg for his life, but he still surprised her. She knew she was right to be frustrated and upset, but she never once considered that Harpy might acknowledge her feelings, or even admit she was right to feel them, “But think about this, please! I know I was not the best man to raise you, but everything I did, I did because I thought it was right. I know you're smart, that might be what I love most of all about you! But as smart as you are you don't understand why things are the way they are. Did it ever occur to you there might be a reason? No, we aren't perfect, and we make mistakes, but so does everyone! The Twisted Hairs have made mistakes for a dozen generations, and over time we learned what worked and what was wrong. There is a reason for everything! Don't throw it all away, please, michoo!”

The flames crackled behind him and Twisted Hairs denied water wailed. Harpy took her hesitation as a sign to press on.

“I always... I always wanted you to lead everyone someday. I knew you had it in you. Your whole life I've been trying to prepare you for how hard it is. You hated my mark, but it was for your own good. I did it so nothing would stand in your way. And everything else I did, I did it because I was trying to show you what it is like. How not everything will be perfect, how sometimes you must wait for things to grow, how you must think of others before yourself, how you must learn to embrace hardship and grow from it. What we do we must do for everyone, and that takes a lot of time and a lot of effort. If ever I was cruel to you, or difficult to understand, it was because I always had faith in you, michoo. Because I love you,” he stared into her eyes.

Her expression was too oblique to leave him any hope. She came back to kill him, and tell him off, so that he would die knowing why. She didn't expect this. He was wrong, of course. The Twisted Hairs were a sick society that needed to be abolished, no matter how earnest or impassioned his defense. Her eyes softened. He could see she loved him. He could see it was too late.

For the rest of her life Julia never forgot two memories of her grandfather. The first was the day he took her and her brother hunting. The second was shooting him in the face.


	72. Hecate

Hecate

Julia drifted for a while, and eventually made her way east into Arizona. It didn't take long for her to become disillusioned with the Legion. She interacted with them sparingly, but often enough to realize smug and sinister weren't merely the least appealing traits of Vulpes Inculta but rather the behavior carried out by Caesar's men like an unspoken mission statement. Condescension and overt sexual aggression seemed to be as important and commonplace among them as their armor and Bull standard. It didn't take much interaction with the people subjected but not enslaved to Caesar for implications to become outright accusations and (even worse) actual personal stories of rape at the hands of Legionaries. Men warned her, women spoke of assaults the same way they discussed radiation, or inclement weather.

Her worst fears were confirmed. She hadn't delivered her people to absolution, dragged them however kicking and screaming into a brighter future, but merely exchanged their iniquity for a stranger's, subjecting them to a culture just as if not more repressive and patriarchal. In her rush to improve the fortunes of her family, in her childish impertinence, she miscalculated, and it was more luck than her inveterate paranoia that she wasn't subject to more consequences than guilt so tremendous it made her shake. All the doubts and fears she'd been too late in developing were realized. Worst of all, her grandfather was proven right. She really didn't understand the world.

The weight of the revelation was crushing. It felt like she was being pressed to death, the method of execution practiced by the Twisted Hairs when they sentenced one of their own. Fortunately, she was in perfect company. The women who'd been victimized by the Legion gave her strength. Their courage and resilience in the face of great tragedy was inspiring. They taught her if not how to cope with personal trauma then how to move past it. In the wasteland people either accepted their pain and carried on, or they died. It was a tough lesson to learn, but more valuable than all the target practice in the world.

Dark Mother kept moving. She started to run the night of the betrayal and she didn't stop until she collapsed. She fled north, not compelled towards anything but driven away with wild animal panic. She slept a half hour at a time, drank from stagnant puddles, and ate very little. In all her thirty years she had never once left Dry Wells, and now that she found herself in the wider world, she was outmatched and struggling. Everything frightened her, from the looming cliffs to the desolate plains. None of it felt like home, and nowhere felt safe. More than any other time in her life she understood what it felt like to be prey.

She managed to traverse a great distance before she collapsed. For five hundred miles she fled, the whole time seeing the coyote that spoke like a man right on her heels. Occasionally she spotted coyotes in the distance and assumed they were tracking her, as though the whole species was in conspiracy against her, trailing her, waiting to pounce and tear into her with ravenous fangs. More frequently as the days passed and insomnia took firmer hold she was startled by her own shadow, assuming it was the man with the head of a coyote come to drag her back to Dry Wells to watch children be murdered again and again. She started to see her shadow even at night, in the full moonlight. The only time she wasn't completely terrified was the night of the new moon, when everything was so dark she couldn't tell when her eyes were opened or closed. That was the only time she felt even close to safe, confident that if she was blind then so were the coyotes.

She didn't remember falling or blacking out. She could barely remember anything when she came to. She awoke in a sterile metal room. Somewhere music was playing, unlike any she ever heard before or after. Something smelled wrong, and it took her a minute to realize what was wrong was that the room had absolutely no smell at all, that all she could smell was her own sweaty, dirty body. More than anything else that put her on edge. The fact that the spartan, unfamiliar cell had no smell seemed to her a gravely ill omen.

Besides herself the room contained only a shelf for the thin foam mattress she woke up on, a metal bowl on top of a waist-high column, and a wider, silver cylinder which was topped with another bowl that had strange meat in it. She assumed the meat was there for her to eat, as she did feel hungry, but when she reached out to grab the meat her hands were stopped by a glass dome.

“Glad to see you're awake!” the dome chirped and lights lit up all over its body. Dark Mother stumbled backwards onto the shelf in surprise, “I didn't mean to startle you!”

It had a woman's voice, but tinny and distant like wherever the woman was speaking from was thousands of miles away, maybe in a different land entirely. Dark Mother goggled in awe at the strange trash can with a woman's voice, then hesitantly asked, “Where... where am I?”

“Oh, I'll tell you in time!” the woman sounded cheerful and excited, which helped put Dark Mother at ease, “First, tell me all about yourself! It's been a _very_ long time since I've had any visitors. Why, now that I think about it, I may have never had a visitor here ever!”

As the woman continued to speak Dark Mother warily noted the tinge of hysteria in her distant voice, hidden beneath the cheer. She didn't respond to the woman's vague prompt, and the cylinder made an odd clicking noise like it was trying to think, then said, “Oh, but where are my manners. My name is Diana. Diana... uh... Diana!” she stumbled, “And what may I ask is _your _name?”

“I... I don't...” Dark Mother shook her head and struggled to find her words again.

“Oh well, it doesn't matter!” Diana decided brightly, “I think I'll call you...” the robot made the strange clicking noise again, this time in three quick successions, “Hecate!”

“Hecate, yes, Hecate, that seems perfectly appropriate don't you think?”

“Why?” asked the newly-christened Hecate. Diana didn't seem to understand what she was asking at first, and there was a pregnant pause as she thought over Hecate's question.

“Ah!” Diana finally understood, “Well, Diana is a goddess, the goddess of the moon specifically, the _full moon_ even more specifically. Meanwhile, Hecate is a goddess herself, but of the _new_ moon. It only makes sense that my compatriot here is named after me, seeing as we are two birds-of-a-feather, as it were,” the robo-brain made a severely unnerving noise, like shattering glass or squealing gears. Hecate winced and Diana carried on, “Also you are a negro, of course, whereas I was white, Celtic white even. So you see, it works on more than one level. We truly do complement each other, Hecate.”

“I am not a god,” Hecate didn't understand.

“Of course you are,” the goddess flippantly asserted, “you are the dark mother, mistress of black magic!” she made the horrible crackling noise again, “Oh, it's so nice to have you here! I _have_ been alone for too long!”

“Where am I?” Hecate asked again.

“Oh but you are in the Nursery dear!” said the goddess, “Only the most wonderful place in all of these-former-United-States. It's quite an honor, I can assure you,” the cylinder tilted forward, either in humility or conspiracy. Hecate certainly felt like she was being inducted to something new and strange, but she had yet to decide whether that was good or not. Diana read her face.

“... Forgive me; I must be confusing you to no end. I've been alone for centuries and I find myself babbling now that I have someone to talk to. Come. Let me show you my world and we will talk and get to know one another. There is much that we can learn from each other,” she said and a panel of wall slid open, ushering Hecate and Diana's robot into a long corridor. The robo-brain waited for the Hecate to go first, then quietly wheeled behind her as Diana pontificated about the origins of the Nursery.

“... so then Poseidon sued, naturally, but because _every little thing_ was classified by the Enclave as a government secret of highest priority they couldn't get their hands on any blueprints more developed than whatever Greenway drew on a napkin when he was still with them, and thus they were utterly and completely unable to prove the geothermal plant used any of their patents, even though, obviously, it did,” she prattled absentmindedly. She didn't realize Hecate was staring out the windows of the control facility in stunned silence. In front of her was such a lush, green garden that she couldn't believe it existed. She rubbed her eyes, pinched her skin, and yet it remained, verdant and bountiful. Birds flitted from branch to branch, the source of the strange music serenading her when she awoke. She finally understood why it was such an honor to be allowed access.

“You know how to grow this?” Hecate interrupted the goddess's babbling. The robo-brain clicked a couple times in deliberation.

“Yes, yes I can. And I can show you how to, too,” she said.

The goddess lived in the Nursery for weeks under the goddess's tutelage. She learned biology, ecology, and genetics, not just the cutting-edge research from before the war but new discoveries Diana made in her centuries of solitude. Dark Mother was never considered intelligent among the Twisted Hairs, but Diana found the goddess a quick study, and eager to learn. Hecate surprised even herself at how quickly she understood what she was taught. For a long time she had been in a fog, unable to think clearly. When her belly was full of pre-war Nursery fruit and she no longer handled heady powders she was much more alert and aware. Alert and aware enough to start planning her revenge. Of particular interest to her was genetics. It started when Diana taught her about horse breeding and dog breeding.

“Could you breed a person like a horse?” she innocently asked. Diana took a moment to consider her question, her hundred unblinking eyes attempted to pierce into her guest's soul. In her past life Diana was never good at reading people. Even though when she was made into the Nursery's computer her vision had become nauseatingly sharp, it couldn't help her understand people any better.

“Well...” she started hesitantly, “I mean, you aren't necessarily looking for the same qualities in a person that you would in a horse...”

“But you could identify specific characteristics or genetic markers in people and breed them with other people carrying those same markers, in the hope that they will birth a new person with those characteristics,” Hecate extrapolated, “Like cancer resistance! We have genes identified that resist cancer.”

“Yes, yes I'm sure you could do that,” Diana agreed, “But you'd have to map out everyone's genome to identify what traits you want to continue,” the Mr. Handy she was speaking through rotated its arms in agitation as she thought, “I suppose the machines here could do that easily enough... But even if you attempted to breed people there's no guarantee that their offspring would have the traits you bred for. And, naturally, what are 'good' genes is rather subjective. Still, it might work...”

The Mr. Handy scratched its 'chin' in a mock gesture of thoughtfulness. In the gardens birds chirped, and a dark seed was planted. The goddess brushed the ethically-difficult question aside and continued teaching, but the idea of breeding humans like stock was never again far from her student's mind.

The goddess Diana assumed she was teaching the goddess Hecate to go out and spread life. Much like the Twin Mothers Hecate was another means to return the world to the way it was, to create gardens and fields of fresh food. To plant trees again. What she couldn't possibly understand, no matter how often she spoke of it, was that Hecate's idea of the world the way it was differed greatly from her vision. To Hecate, the way things were was much more recent, much more brutal, and tinged by more loss than Diana assumed. After all, in relation to the entire world, what was a single tribe to the goddess of the full moon? Although superficially the women were the same, much like their namesakes they were actually complete opposites.

When Diana felt that her guest was educated enough to spread her message of life, she told Hecate of a place where she could begin sowing the seeds of rebirth. Before the war the Enclave wasn't as invested in the Nursery as they were in the vaults, but a project as immense and expensive as the Nursery couldn't get funding unless it was in some way appealing to the shadow government. Although Greenway Hydroponics was kept in the dark about any Enclave involvement through the EPA, once Diana was surgically linked to the Nursery's computers their encrypted spyware was simple to crack. From there it was simply a trip through DARPANET to the next-closest Enclave facility, which at the time was a top-secret chemical storage bunker in Utah. Before the war she didn't find anything interesting about the place, and as long as the Enclave left her alone she was content to leave them alone; but now, with the arrival of her new friend, she realized just how valuable the bunker was.

“Pesticides, fertilizer, phosphorus, plus the world's last great supply of helium, it's got everything a growing plant needs and then some!” the goddess said after telling her about the bunker, “The only thing to watch out for are the weapons,” she added in an uncommonly serious tone.

“Weapons?” the goddess asked.

“Yes, agent orange, mustard gas, FEV precursor that'll cause your eyes to pop out of their sockets and dance like marionette strings!” she made the screeching, grinding noise again, then clarified, “It's a general storage facility for chemicals, which means it's a repository for war crimes as much as it is for miracle-gro. Naturally, some of the containers might have lost their integrity so be careful on level six, but you shouldn't need to go all the way down there, and anything else that's dispersed _ought_ to be inert by now.”

Hecate was overwhelmed by the goddess's benevolence. When it was time for her to leave Diana gifted her with a small team of Nursery robots, for protection and to assist her in turning the bunker into a new Eden. She was also gifted with a GECK, a supply of seeds, and some of the Nursery's replacement parts for building a gene mapper (at her request).

“Oh, you _must_ come and visit me again sometime! I do so love hearing all about your life in the wider world, it is so _fascinating!_” Diana bid her farewell, full of pride and sorrow.

“Naturally,” Hecate smiled at her benefactor and friend, and the goddesses parted with love. Diana never realized she never disabused Hecate of the notion that they were both goddesses. It never occurred to her that the belief might be dangerous.

Of the three women who escaped the betrayal at Dry Wells, Athena had the most difficulty adjusting. She wasn't as scared as the future goddess, but she wasn't as confident and capable as the future high priestess of Hecate. In the years since her husband died she'd left her survival skills to stagnate and wither. For the first time in a long time she was responsible for her own food, and more often than not she went without.

With no skills to fall back on she took to prostituting herself, to merchants and other tribals, but never to the Legion. It wasn't happy work, but it kept her fed. She made friends with a few other 'wasteland whores' as they called themselves, and spent months following caravan trails with them as a ragtag troupe. With her laser pistol she was the best equipped to protect them all, and soon negotiated herself into a position as pimp more than prostitute. Although to her it was less demeaning, it still wasn't a prosperous life, and so when a mysterious, face-painted stranger approached the group proselytizing for the goddess Hecate, she eagerly converted.

In the early days without a dedicated core of Sibyls the goddess was much more involved with the day-to-day of Ouroboros, and recognized Athena. They embraced, and wept for their lost people. Rather than inspire disbelief in the goddess, Athena only loved Hecate more. Their shared history didn't provide Athena with any preferential treatment, though, and soon Hecate retreated into her completed temple. Though Athena never forgot exactly who the Daughters worshiped, they never crossed paths again.

When an agent of the goddess came to convert Julia, she was working with the Circle of Steel in Arizona. Hecate, receiving curious reports of a tribal girl collaborating with the Brotherhood, sought her out specifically. Julia, attempting to atone and just generally disgusted with the Legion, had been selling Legion information to Circle knights and coordinating ambushes, so much so that they trusted her enough to allow her access to Maxson Bunker. While Hecate learned old-world science from the goddess, Julia learned it from scribes, mostly medicine but history, too. She made more friends, and didn't want for anything.

Hecate felt the Circle of Steel was a threat to her growing power, though. At her personal direction, Julia collapsed the bunker and killed everyone inside. By her reasoning, the Brotherhood of Steel was the past. Hecate and her Daughters were the future.


	73. In The Absence of God

In The Absence of God

Although everything in Ouroboros continued as normal, Atia could still feel the absence. Not just the absence in her own life, but the absence in the upper levels of Hecate's pyramid, too. Often as she traversed the grounds she caught herself stealing glances at the ziggurat's apex, imagining the Goddess' austere quarters (she pictured a circular room empty save a pedestal for the Goddess to pose upon, all cold stone like the outside of the temple or the grand corridor which spilled into the atrium. She was incorrect. Rather Hecate's personal suite was an opulent spread of silk sheets, down pillows, and mellow lights. Her chambers were more akin to a sultan's harem than a monk's cell) now empty. At the top of Ouroboros a yawning chasm threatened to engulf them all, a gaping void in the sky that all the Daughters and Hounds besides herself were oblivious to. Where the watchful eye of the Goddess once kept vigilance, the sky was now a dark and sinister emptiness.

Years ago when she first arrived at Ouroboros Atia was introduced to Hecate worship mainly through Julia's less-than-reverent interpretation. She was an outsider from the beginning, an unwitting heretic, ostracized for the sins she unknowingly perpetrated and carried over from her past life. Her shepherd into the cult was not a woman of perfervid belief; for a newly-appointed high priestess Julia lacked the fanaticism that could be reasonably expected of her. The way she spoke about the Goddess made Hecate sound more like an eccentric grandmother than an all-powerful deity. Someone that had earned respect, certainly, but whose odd proclivities were more tolerated than revered. Julia stressed the practical benefits of Hecate worship above the dogma, proudly boasting of her cult's modern medical practices and feminism. Atia had to admit Ouroboros felt like such a wonderland that she still wasn't sure whether or not she really had survived exile, that it wasn't all a wonderful dying dream. In any case, the taste of a fresh apple (not that she'd enjoyed such a delight for more than a year) was enough to convince her of the Goddess's divinity more than any proselytizing.

And so it came that time passed. It was six years after her informal induction into the cult of Hecate, baptized a heretic, not with the oil, wine and powder (said to be lunar dust but actually just ashes scraped off the bitter earth) that anointed hallowed Daughters but in the amniotic fluid that soaked her sheets and announced the imminent arrival of her heretical bastard child, her virgin birth. Once free of the maternity ward and neglectful of her sin she was just another Daughter, as decadent and devoted as any other Sibyl. Finally welcomed into the flock, she was immersed in the true culture of Ouroboros, where Hecate's power and authority was absolute. To question the Goddess was as unthinkable as questioning the sun or the rain. Slowly, slowly she was drawn into the mysticism of the Hecate cult, the weird rituals and the devotion to the beloved, all-powerful Goddess.

Her conversion from skeptic to fanatic was gradual, but aided immensely by bufo and wine, which she not only enjoyed with gusto but was in fact obliged to partake in in accordance with Hecate's doctrine. For once the Goddess's logic was not so cold or calculated behind her facade of divine love, dogma not in service of her manipulations or eugenics, but instead inspired by a very wasteland logic, namely that life is suffering. So Hecate took it upon herself to enforce the most extreme comfort and relief she possibly could. Perhaps the only tenet of her religion that truly sprang from her own love (regardless of what her priestesses said) the fact that it made people pliable and more open to manipulation and religious exultation was just a happy consequence of the drugs and discotheque and doctrine of hedonism. Atia, free of the maternity ward and embraced by sisterhood, could feel that love wash over her, envelop her, flow through and around her. It made it easier to believe the Goddess hung the moon, or rather snatched it from the sky at her whim.

More than drugs and an infectious rhythm, though, what truly converted Atia was a sense of belonging. Among Caesar's slaves there was a strong sense of camaraderie, born of desperate necessity and the shared indignity of bondage, but it was discouraged in slaves that weren't laying down their lives in war. Even then it was only allowed among his soldiers for practical purposes, and if men fought as well without it he'd discourage fraternizing among them, too. As for his other slaves collusion was actively suppressed, women and children and unfit men who were seen forming attachments were separated or even crucified. Although Caesar was a man of great and terrible ego he was not so arrogant enough to believe that if his slaves were allowed to collectivize they wouldn't rise up against him. He'd read enough anti-union literature from the early 20th century to know what to expect and how to take appropriate steps against it. Even still, plenty did find ways to subvert his iron rule, but none of them were willing to do so on Atia's behalf, in accordance with Caesar's design.

There were plenty of slaves as well-read and well-spoken as the little blonde girl in coke-bottle glasses, and there were quite a few with even better education. Among his court of centurions powerful, clever men petitioned for the right to administer his holdings. His priestesses frequently presented him with their own suggested secretaries, hand-picked from the slaves they were tasked with indoctrinating. Even Graham, with his cold pragmatic villainy, offered to step away from the front lines and dedicate himself to the arduous task of managing Caesar's ever-expanding army. For a while Edward considered his oldest ally's offer. Since the very beginning the Mormon had refused to play along with his game of dress-up and make-believe, and at first he'd ignored the insult. It made him angry, but he was short on allies and Graham was his best, not just for the man's command of every tribal language for miles around, but also, as time went on, his increasing prowess in battle. The resentment Caesar nursed against Graham's refusal to play pretend had metamorphosed in his breast into real fear as the lie spread, and his power depended more and more on it. Unfortunately, Graham's abilities as a leader and general had grown in concert with the threat he posed to Caesar's authority. While it would've neatly taken care of the inconvenient questions Graham's presence on the Legion's front lines slowly attracted, and although Caesar was confident his Legate would make a fine administrator, he instead ignored all counsel and made the selection with his predator's instincts. His choice proved to be a masterstroke.

Atia was chosen by the son of Mars personally. He even left his opulent command tent and graced the slave pens with his divine presence. When he first saw her, a child standing among the slaves who confessed literacy, he knew she was perfect. A small, slim girl with shimmering hair, her survival depended on being overlooked. Her tribe was freshly conquered and she still hadn't been broken yet by his priestesses or his soldiers. By making her an administrator in his nascent empire (“The Heart of the Legion” by her own assertion) he isolated her from everyone except Legates and Praetorians and the Priestesses of Mars, all three of whom disliked her either because she was female, because she was young, or simply because no one with any empathy or compassion made it to the top of the Legion hierarchy, by design. She was absolutely and completely loyal to Caesar and Caesar alone, because there was no one else in her life that didn't openly loathe her. The son of Mars bred further resentment by publicly affording her small favors, not out of gratitude but simply to make her a pariah, ever more dependent on him and him alone. She took to it like none other. When the presumptive emperor of the wasteland appointed her his secretary she quickly understood that it meant she was superior to the other slaves. That feeling of superiority helped her cope with the isolation, and she used every opportunity she could to treat everyone like garbage because that was how she dealt with loneliness.

Ultimately, though, she was only a means to an end for Caesar, and after almost a decade of loyal and talented service she was tossed aside without a second thought. The son of Mars did not take good care of his personal property, no matter how well it served him. One night, she was summoned as usual, but rather than being brought before Caesar she was instead left with Aurelius of Phoenix, who wasted no time in 'breaking her in,' as he put it. By the end she was bruised and sobbing, and as he informed her of her new appointment he crushed her glasses in his hand. She soon found herself among a collective of similarly abused women, but even among Aurelius of Phoenix's wives Atia remained apart, scorned by her sister-wives. It didn't help she still stank of hubris like rancid garbage. The faded glory of her superior enslavement kept her alive but kept her apart.

Among the Daughters, there was nothing to isolate her like that, so long as she refused to acknowledge her son. By the time she admitted parentage of her blasphemous child she'd developed strong enough bonds that her friends forgave her, and that was enough kindness to make her cry. No one had ever forgiven her for any of her obnoxious behavior in the Legion, even though she was only a child and couldn't know any better. Her fellow Daughters, on the other hand, embraced her openly and without reservation, and the love they shared with her was called the Goddess's.

But now the Goddess was gone. And if the Goddess was gone, Atia couldn't help worrying that her love left with her. The night air seemed colder, the darkness surrounding Ouroboros seemed darker, and the relationships she'd built never felt more tenuous. Usually when she felt like that, like the world was closing in on her and she was overwhelmed by the sick feeling that she was a slave again, that hunted caged feeling of Aurelius' slave tent, she'd turn to Julia. Yet when her first friend suddenly reappeared, it didn't give her comfort.

It was after midnight, a month and a half after Julia left with Hecate, and a full moon. Atia spent the evening clubbing at the temple, celebrating her first day off in two weeks, and for once not giving her night over to worry. She conscripted her friend Sunflower into babysitting Julius. Like many of the orphaned Harpies who overran Ouroboros after their tribes were conquered by the Legion Sunflower was desperate for something to do. The overburdened gardens had been greatly expanded to accommodate the influx, but not everyone could work in the gardens. Although it was kept from the general population, as a Sybil Atia was privilege to all the hottest gossip, and word among the Sybils was there were a few women who couldn't take their uselessness any longer and had instead taken their own lives. Sunflower was three months pregnant with another sure-to-be-beautiful Child of Hecate (At least as predicted by the computer that cross-referenced her and her Hecate-mandated partner's genetic markers. If the child proved to be a less-than stellar combination of all its potential genes it would be disposed of, as Hecate no longer had enough tribal worshipers to swap it out for one of their healthy offspring), so she wasn't exactly despairing, but jumped at the offer all the same. She was happy to get some time to herself in Atia's luxurious private apartment, as the other three women she lived with were not similarly blessed with the future of the wasteland and they acted accordingly. Atia found her asleep on the couch, and unlike Sunflower's roommates she tried not to wake her.

She carefully stumbled to her bedroom door, but when she opened it something was wrong. The two-floor adobe building was carefully designed to stay cool during the day and warm at night, but her room was chilly, from a slight midnight breeze that whispered through the open window. Her heart caught in her throat and she sobered immediately. Her first instinct was to run to Julius' room and make sure he was safe.

“Hey,” a familiar voice said before she could react.

“... Julia?” she stumbled and leaned against the door-frame, letting the light from the hallway guide her to the dresser where Julia sat.

“How's it going?” Julia asked her. On approach Atia noticed the smell. Julia hadn't taken off her armor since she left, and she smelt overripe, her sweat mingled with the metal and kevlar and leather. She also smelled overwhelmingly of alcohol, the kind of cheap poison she liked to keep in the cupboard above the stove. In the morning Atia would discover it was exactly that, three whole plastic bottles of it.

“Did you come through the window?” Atia incredulously goggled at the ground two stories down then shut the window. Julia shrugged in apology. There were deep bags under her bleary, bloodshot eyes, and she slumped on the dresser like it was the first time she'd sat down in days.

“Why didn't you come in through the door?” Atia said dumbly, but dropped it when Julia only stared at her in silence, not knowing the answer either.

“How'd it go out there?” she asked timidly but more seriously, “Did you... did you find what you were looking for?”

Julia's face, already tired and worn, collapsed at the question. She stared numbly at the bed, then slowly her eyes fell to her gloved palms. “Yes,” she said suddenly. The word was an echo that had bounced around in her hollow chest before it escaped her mouth, “Yes. I think I did.”

Atia smiled warmly and drunkenly at her. She grasped Julia's hand with her own, and the high priestess looked into her eyes.

“I missed you,” Atia admitted.

Julia slowly broke out in her sly _I know something_ grin. All the sorrow and guilt and exhaustion hidden behind the smile she looked like herself again.

“I missed you, too,” she said softly, “Sorry I smell like a wet fart.”

Atia burst into giggles, but clamped her hand over her mouth and mock-angrily chastised, “The babysitter is asleep on the couch.”

Julia's grin broke out into a broad smile, and the last traces of her fatigue were pushed away, as she loudly explained, “I wouldn't worry about it. I knocked over your jewelry box when I crawled in and she didn't so much as snore.” She'd even sat on the end of the couch to drink and Sunflower still didn't wake up. Atia playfully punched her arm and admonished her to “be nice,” then led her to the bathroom and kept her company while she bathed. Julia mostly listened to Atia as she gossiped about Ouroboros in her absence, but occasionally she'd make a quip or an observation. There was no more discussion about where she'd been or what she'd done.

The next day when Atia walked Julius to school in the morning, she stole a quick glance at the top of Hecate's pyramid. For some reason, it still seemed empty.


	74. It

It

It was happening again. When he was a child, the spasms came and went, and the headaches weren't so bad. They scared his mother, but they'd honestly never bothered him too much. The Followers who treated him were always nice, and the way they talked about it to him never made it seem like a big deal. It was just A Thing That Happened, and as long as he never swallowed his own tongue it'd pass and everything would be alright again. When he was eight he was given Lorazepam to treat it, and by the time he was sixteen he stopped having episodes. Until now.

The timing couldn't have been worse. At first he'd ignored the resurgence of the headaches, and it had been easy. All he did was grit his teeth and stay focused on the plan, on his plan. It drove him to lash out, and act more violently than he perhaps would have otherwise, but the pain passed and no one was the wiser. In fact, it only made him more feared. But each time it came he desperately begged no one in particular that it would be the last time, but it only seemed to be getting worse.

And now, when he needed his wits and his cunning more than ever, the headaches and the seizures were in full force. For the past several months he'd been lucky, and the attacks only cropped up when he could conveniently excuse himself from the world at large, and leave his duties to a Centurion or Graham. Nothing important; dispensing Legion justice or entertaining the slightly-less powerful with a performance he'd arranged. Thus far, his infirmity hadn't plagued him during battle or at a war council, but the attacks were becoming more frequent, as were battles and war councils. At least once a month he was unable to function for several hours due to the pain, and the odds of a seizure gripping him while he was engaged in something important were increasing at a prodigious rate.

“Everywhere we meet them the bears either run in fear or die like brahmin,” Centurion Licinius reported, as a bloom of gray fog accompanied by a roil of unimaginable pain obscured his face, “Rather than confront us at Fort Aradesh, they fled like women and allowed us to occupy the structure.

“The men have taken to calling it Fort _Abandon_, in honor of our enemies' inglorious defeat,” he added through a viper's smile, which his glorious master could not see for the pain like a thunderstorm in his skull. Licinius's smug smile slipped away in fear of his master's pained grimace, as Caesar clenched his eyes shut and caressed his aching temple with his hand. Licinius nervously glanced around the war council, but no other man would meet his terrified gaze, opting to instead examine their own hands or the walls or the table. Anything to escape what they assumed was the Son of Mar's infamous temper, while Caesar personally struggled to compose himself in the face of inescapable torment.

“It's well and good to take more territory from the NCR,” it was the Malpais Legate who spoke. The last free man in the Legion, he had no fear of Caesar's reprisals. After the things he'd seen and done for the man he once called Edward, it was unclear if he was afraid of anything anymore. Under his SLCPD vest was a thick layer of bandages, covering the hole that went straight through his torso, a shot that would've killed any other man. He was fresh from the front lines. Unlike Licinius and the centurions who assaulted Aradesh Graham had deliberately cut off an NCR battalion's retreat, then crucified them when they surrendered. He'd made sure they were visible on the front lines, but the exposure had afforded a ranger the opportunity to snipe him. The NCR veteran on the other side of the scope pissed himself in terror when the Legate stood back up and returned fire. He jammed his own thumb in the hole to stem the bleeding. The ranger was absolutely positive he'd hit him in the heart.

“But men who flee from battle are still alive to continue the war,” Graham chastised, “And they'll join the contingent at the Dam, which will only make it that more difficult to claim the real prize.”

“They've merely delayed their deaths,” Thoros, among the centurions to claim Aradesh, sneered, “Cowards now and cowards then.”

There was no hint of emotion in Graham's cold blue eyes when he said, “Perhaps.”

Like most of the centurions at the war council, Thoros loathed and feared the Legate. Even among the Legion he was seen as extreme, the stories of his cruelty and brutality giving pause to some of the most hardened and cruel men in the southwest. The name Joshua Graham was synonymous with savagery. Thoros, as mean as he was, had no hope of matching Graham on the field, and personally, he didn't really want to. There were some lines even he wouldn't cross.

“In any case, we can count on all the men we aren't killing on this side of the Colorado to be present at the Dam,” the Legate continued in his stentorian tone, “Whether they're cowards or not it'll be a fight unlike anything we've seen before. It will be the first true test of the Legion, and we should commit our largest force yet to break the bear.”

“I agree with the Legate,” Centurion Janus, known as the Death-Dealer for his propensity to strike deals with tribes and then betray them, spoke up. He was an older centurion, a former Blackfoot, and he carried a cane made of bone. His centuriae wasn't on the front lines against the New California Republic, instead he was patrolling the Legion's southern border near what used to be Mexico, but he was close enough that it would've been an insult not to invite him to the war council. He continued, “This is a pivotal moment in history. What happens at the Hoover Dam will shape the destiny of the wasteland for years to come.”

“Easy for you to say,” Licinius, a younger man less secure in his position, sneered at Janus, “When was the last time you even fought a battle?”

“When did you? Certainly not at Aradesh, from the sound of it,” Janus snapped back.

“ENOUGH!” Caesar bellowed and slammed his fist down on the table. He felt like a railroad spike was being driven into his temple. He didn't want to make any rash decisions, but he couldn't take the pain anymore, and he couldn't show any weakness before the war council. Before it consumed him completely he had to excuse himself, and, blinded by suffering, he saw only one option, “Legate Graham is in charge of the assault on Hoover Dam! I have full faith in him, he has my permission to use whatever resources he deems necessary, _this war council is dismissed!_”

He rose before any centurion could react and stalked out of the room. He barely made it to his private quarters, where he collapsed on his four-post bed and sobbed. It was so intense he screamed into a pillow, and then mercifully passed out.

Back in the boardroom of the former Phoenix Chamber of Commerce, the war council struggled to process what had just happened. Licinius still wasn't entirely sure he wasn't going to be crucified, Janus thumbed the small skull carved into the top of his cane, Thoros could only stare in slack-jawed silence at the empty doorway, while centurions Manderlay, Franklin, Jones, Baoltai, Pompey, Theseus, Crastus, Arlen, and all the others leading the war against the NCR looked expectantly to Graham, unaware that the New Canaanite would be leading them to their deaths in Boulder City.


	75. Bitches' Parade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bitches' Parade, a parade for, and of, bitches

Bitches' Parade

Athena was at a “Daughter's Temperance Union Lady's Lunch” when she heard the news, which is to say she was drinking and smoking and gambling with a gaggle of other orphaned Harpies just outside of town. The “Daughter's Temperance Union” put on this social event once a week. In an informal parade they'd all march with card tables and plastic lawnchairs and bottles of wine and dirty streamers and crackling sparklers, wearing outrageous hats and tribal approximations of ladies' high fashion from 1890 to 2077. According to the Temperance Union it was a “Bitches' Parade” and everyone involved was encouraged to sing rude songs together as loud as they could. Once the parade gathered on the “lawn,” a bare patch of ground where the earth was packed hard and flat, they set up the tables, chairs, and three poles from which they hung two banners, one declaring “LIPS THAT TOUCH LIQUOR SHALL NOT TOUCH OURS” and the other announcing “WOMEN'S TEMPERANCE UNION- UTAH 1956,” under which they gambled on bridge games, smoked cigars, and drank wine.

In truth the entire Daughter's Temperance Union was the brainchild of Sybil Yvana, who along with a few other high-ranking Sybils, scared and unsure why Hecate had not taken steps herself to improve morale among Her Daughters, had taken it upon themselves to rectify the problem. In the last month alone three Harpies had taken their own lives, but the Goddess had sat on the information without so much as acknowledgment. It was an unprecedented abdication on Her part. Although they were not given expressed permission to work on solutions without her input, the Sibyls who served as priestesses and Her closest advisers did so anyway. The only one that hadn't been present at their councils was the high priestess herself, as no one could find her. In response to the growing crisis the Sibyls had formed the Daughter's Temperance Union, an organization within the church whose sole purpose would be maintaining morale. The name was chosen as a joke, based on two banners Sibyl Olaya used for decoration. She found them in what was once the community center of the small Utah town of Cedar City, on the Long 15. Olaya liked to joke that the Women's Temperance Union was an arcane secret society that had been pulling America's strings behind the scenes for centuries, like a women-only Enclave.

Ultimately, the Daughter's Temperance Union was only a temporary stopgap. Though the group sponsored events, taught classes, and provided entertainment, the priestesses of Hecate were still waiting for the Goddess's final say. Ideally, Hecate would enact the next stage of her plan (the details of which were only sparingly meted out) and every Daughter would be called upon to deliver her divine vengeance upon the barbarous Legion and their false god Caesar. After almost two decades the goddess's Children were numerous and plenty of them were battle-ready, but the cleansing Hecate promised wasn't coming, and no amount of welding classes, live music performances, and Lady's Luncheons would keep the Daughters busy forever.

In the meantime, though, they seemed to be doing the job. Satisfaction and emotional well-being were anecdotally up, and since the Temperance Union was formed there were no more suicides. Even with their success, though, the priestesses were terrified of Hecate's response to their unauthorized initiative. At best, Hecate might take credit. At worst, the Goddess might see it as a threat to her authority and have everyone involved tortured and murdered and erased from history.

Athena liked the camaraderie of the Lady's Lunch. Ever since their confrontation in the Maenad bar, while Julia was in Ouroboros Athena was dedicated to observing her every movement, tracing her and keeping a log, waiting for her to slip up. Perhaps it was so she could expose her, perhaps it was so she'd know when the end was coming and could steal away, like at Dry Wells. Athena didn't really understand her own intentions, but she knew that it was important to keep tabs on the one person she hated and feared above all else. Since the high priestess left with the Goddess, though, there wasn't anything to occupy her time and energy. The lewd songs and colorful streamers of the Bitches' Parade was her call to arms, the herald of her rebirth. For weeks after Julia's departure she was anxious and paranoid, constantly anticipating her bane's return, constantly praying for the safe return of her Goddess. She worried herself sick, slept little and had painful stomach cramps. When she did sleep, she often had disturbing nightmares. The most commonly recurring nightmare saw her climb to the top of Hecate's temple and open a door into the goddess's private chambers, then pass into the room she could only dream of entering in waking life. In the dream the goddess stands hunched in a corner, facing away from her, but Athena only felt love and warmth when she sees the woman for whom she has given everything. Yet, something is wrong, and she can feel it, and the feeling only grows as Hecate's braids fall away one-by-one, revealing a bare metal scalp with Julia's face, and then Athena would wake up screaming. Ever since that first Lady's Lunch with the Daughter's Temperance Union, the nightmares stopped, and even though she was still anxious, it was bearable so long as she was surrounded by her peers in silly hats, laughing gaily at absolutely nothing at all. And when Sunflower went looking for her, that's where she found her.

“She's back,” Sunflower whispered in her ear. Athena did a poor job of disguising her alarm. She'd quietly spread the word to all of her friends that should any of them see the high priestess, she would like to know about it, although she'd been so low-key and casual with her request that Sunflower was taken aback by her apparent distress at its being fulfilled.

“When and where did you see her?” Athena asked quickly and quietly, hand shaking but still clutching her cards as if she still meant to finish the game. She and her partner were betting a jar of perfume against a ball of yarn, rare and expensive commodities in the isolated community.

“I was babysitting and when I woke up she was there. Uh.. a few, a few days ago,” Sunflower stammered, uncomfortable and embarrassed for reasons she didn't quite understand, “I couldn't find you until... until now.”

“Take my place,” Athena ordered as she jumped up and shoved her hand into Sunflower's. She was already on the edge of the Lady's Lunch when Sunflower plopped down in her seat and gloomily mumbled, “I don't know how to play.”

“Good!” Soledad made up one-half of the other team, “I really want that perfume.”

Athena hurried to the temple, ignoring the few stray Hounds and Daughters loitering around the grounds. Some of them gave her strange looks or cocked their eyebrows at her dress, a ragged facsimile of a pink poodle skirt complete with fuchsia neckerchief (conveniently obscuring her Legion jewelry, the broken slave collar she'd cheerlessly worn for most her life) and tortoise-shell glasses with the lenses poked out. She shuffled into Hecate's pyramid sheepish but determined, and made a beeline straight for the Sibyl command center. The door was locked with a keycard-reader, and she did have a keycard that might get her in (leftover from Project Remus), but she didn't have it on her, and in any case she knew a way in without it. When Remus was at peak data influx there were so many Daughters involved with inputting the collected Legion records that there wasn't enough time to get all their clearances approved, so instead security protocol was overwritten and the reader was just flat-out disabled. Although security protocol should've been reinstated once the furor died down, the Sibyls didn't bother. Athena thought it an enormous oversight, especially for an organization that trafficked so heavily in espionage, but even still she happily profited from it as she merely removed the reader from the wall, disconnected it from the network, and slipped through the doors that eagerly slid open for her.

The control center was an intimidating labyrinth of servers, wires, printers and terminals, powered like the rest of Ouroboros by unknown means and lit mostly by the flickering glow of monitors and vacuum tubes. Most of the temporary stations established for Remus had been disabled, but rather than removed from the room they were instead stacked upon each other and pushed against a far wall, adding to the clutter. In the center sat a miracle of pre-war technology, a living map of the southwest, a three-dimensional model that simulated the weather and politics with colored lights. Territory belonging to the Daughters was bathed in purple, the Legion red. Almost the entire map was bathed in red light. Most of Hecate's faithful were unaware of how sharply her power had declined, or at best had only a sneaking suspicion. If any one of them were to stumble across such an alarming depiction of their Goddess's loss of influence as the Sibyls' map, all of Ouroboros would rise together in a call to arms so fervent and afraid that it would be impossible to ignore. As it was, though, Athena herself wasn't interested in maps but people.

Most of whom were at the Lady's Lunch, or otherwise preoccupied, which was fine, as it played right into Athena's hand. She combed the machine alleyways for stray Sibyls still at their stations.

“Oh!” Yvana was startled when she found her, “Are you from the Luncheon?”

Athena realized she was still wearing her ostentatious sun-hat, purple with a whole bouquet of pink paper flowers tucked in the brim. She snatched it off nervously and tucked it behind her back before admitting, “Yes, yeah, I was just there.”

“Do I know you? Are you supposed to be in here?” Yvana had her feet up on a server taller than she was when Athena surprised her, picking her teeth with a carpet tack. As was her hobby, she'd been reading up on pre-war American history from the archives. An essay by someone named Samuel Clemens titled “Comments on the Moro Massacre” caught her attention as she was browsing the archives. As Athena came upon her she had just finished up a paragraph reading:

“There, with six hundred engaged on each side, we lost fifteen men killed outright, and we had thirty-two wounded—counting that nose and that elbow. The enemy numbered six hundred—including women and children—and we abolished them utterly, leaving not even a baby alive to cry for its dead mother. This is incomparably the greatest victory that was ever achieved by the Christian soldiers of the United States.”

A statement, she noted, that was only true in 1906, when the essay was written. The broader subject of the essay, America's war in the Philippines, was almost completely unknown to her, and in fact the only reason she had access to the essay at all was because high priestess Julia had taken great pains to recover and upload it, seeing as it was censored and banned in America in 1966 by the House Un-American Activities Committee, for portraying the country (and especially Christians, at least as interpreted by the HUAC) in a bad light. Julia herself had only chanced upon the work by accident, while going toe-to-toe with super mutants in the ruins of Brigham Young University. Why BYU had a collection of banned books was lost to the ages, but likely didn't have much to do with the school's administration.

“Well, I've been here... before, uh,” Athena gave Yvana a chance to recognize her, or at least realize she had been a part of Remus.

“Oh, that's right! Yeah, you were one of the girls for, uh,” Yvana hadn't been directly involved with Julia's brainchild, but she had spent considerable time setting up all the terminals for it, and considerably less time taking them down and pushing them to the side.

“Yeah,” for a moment they spoke over each other awkwardly, and then paused in nervous silence.

“So... what are you doing here now?” Yvana backed out of her essay to the history archive's menu, then casually propped her feet back up against the server in an affable gesture. Athena had been very lucky to find the most friendly and open of Hecate's priestesses, but the question still begged an answer.

“Olaya, uh,” Athena leaned in and lowered her voice, even though they were almost certainly alone, “She wanted to know if there was, uh, a change. With the, uh, with the... Goddess.”

When Yvana's face drained of color, her pupils shrank, and her eyes widened, Athena knew her lie had struck gold. She wasn't totally sure just how the goddess communicated with the Sibyls, but she knew that for more than a month it hadn't been in person.

“What did she tell you?” Yvana sat up in her chair and whispered, as though she didn't know they were completely alone. Sweat was already collecting on her brow. As much as she was scared that Hecate's recent obtuseness might make the gossip mill of Ouroboros, she was just as desperate to share her fear that something was wrong with the Goddess, to lean on someone else for emotional support. As much as she loved her sisters in the command room, sometimes she felt she couldn't honestly express her feelings around them.

“Just that you were waiting for a message from Hecate,” Athena quietly guessed. Then she added, “Why, is something wrong?”

“No!” Yvana blurted a little too loudly, especially for how close they'd gotten. Athena jumped back in surprise, “No, no, I mean... Well, uh... I mean...”

“No, it's okay. It's not my place, if you don't want to tell me,” even as she smiled and said the words she hated herself for it, “I mean, it isn't like I'm important or in charge of anything, or whatever.”

“No, no no,” Yvana backpedaled as Athena declared “I'm just a messenger” and shrugged her shoulders, “I just- I just don't want to worry you. You know? I don't, ah, I don't want to... cause any alarm...”

Athena mimed zipping her mouth shut and locking it with a key.

“Well,” Yvana sighed and ran her fingers through her hair, suddenly exhausted, “It's just... It's been strange, kind of. Recently. I'm not sure how to put it. The way... the way we interact with, uh, with-with the Goddess mostly, um, I mean, generally- we input intelligence gathered by Maenads into the computers, and then She analyzes it and sends orders back to us through the computer.”

“It used to be intelligence gathered by Harpies,” Athena mumbled sadly, with a small half-smile. Yvana sadly smiled back and nodded her head in solidarity.

“Although, if there was something important, or if we personally wanted to get her input on something, she'd come down and talk to us. It wasn't often, or anything, but...” Hecate was always gregarious and warm on her increasingly-infrequent visits to the command room. Yvana secretly felt that she'd always especially valued her counsel, but when any Sibyl spoke she always patiently and intently listened. Her absence over the past month-and-a-half had been acutely felt, “But we haven't seen her in a long time. And her orders are...” she struggled to find the words, “The orders she sends us through the machine have been... like, repetitive? Do you know what I mean? Like she isn't reading what we're uploading. 'Stay the course,' that's what she keeps saying. It's really starting to freak me out.”

Athena feigned confusion and ignorance, despite perfectly anticipating everything Yvana told her. She tilted her head quizzically and tried her best to obscure just how important was the answer to the question, “But there's been no change?... Like... like Olaya asked?”

“No,” Yvana glumly reported, “She's still refusing to make any real decisions. Keeping us in a holding pattern.”

She absently slid her chair up to the monitor and backed out of the history archives to the root menu, from which she loaded all of Hecate's most recent missives, ignoring the unconcealable expression of pure terror that bloomed, brightly, across Athena's face. As she idly browsed the Goddess's pre-programmed automatic messages Athena's head spun. She felt sick, like she was about to faint. She grabbed onto the computer-bank to steady herself as acrid bile surged up her throat and lapped the back of her tongue. She blinked, and rubbed her eyes, and pulled at her dreadlocks, and tried everything she could to wake up, but it wasn't a nightmare, it was real. _But_ _if _she's_ back, and the Goddess isn't..._ It was a thought so terrible, she couldn't finish it, even though it was true and real and there was no denying it. The monster that haunted her, who betrayed her and destroyed her life had done so once again, had once again burned everything that mattered to her to the ground. _And for what? Why?_

“I think there's a reason,” Yvana suddenly spoke and shook Athena from her own dark thoughts, “I've been looking over everything she's told us in the past few weeks, and I think... I think she's waiting for something?”

Athena wanted to scream. She wanted to grab Yvana by the shoulders and shake her and scream, “She's betrayed us! She's killed Her and she'll kill us all!” She wanted to run. She didn't know where, but they had to leave. _We have to stop her. We have to do something_, she thought. But she couldn't speak. It felt like her entire body was petrified.

“See, the Legion is upping their campaign against the Californians. Just as She predicted it's coming to a head in the Mojave,” Yvana carried on, oblivious, “While the main force under Graham targets Hoover, smaller forces are headed to the Cali/Vegas divide on the Long 15 and Hopeville- to cut off the bear's way home- and I think- maybe- she's waiting to see how that'll all play out? I think, maybe... maybe she thinks it'll be the end of Caesar. She's always saying Vegas will be the end of him. I think she's waiting until that comes to pass.”

She caught her breath. The argument Yvana was proposing was so appealing, and the alternative so unbearably terrible that she couldn't help but be convinced. And it wasn't so irrational to believe that Hecate was keeping the Daughters on autopilot because She was waiting, in Her divine omnipotence, for the perfect moment to strike. The Goddess was calculating, and sometimes cold, and it wasn't against Her nature to keep her followers in the dark. _It's all part of her plan_, Athena reassured herself, and she almost believed it.

“That's... Yes. I think you... that sounds absolutely right. Absolutely,” she declared lamely. Yvana allowed herself a real smile in relief. Confronting her fears about the Goddess had yielded more positive results than she expected. She felt refreshed, and confident, “Hey, I'm keeping you from the Luncheon. You should head back and tell Olaya no change.”

“Yes. Yeah. Thank you. I will. I will do that. Thanks,” still in shock, Athena spun on her heel and made her way back through the labyrinth. At the door she re-connected the keycard-reader, and the door slammed shut. Yvana went back to her historical essays, wrapped in the darkness of Hecate's command center.

Rather than rejoin the Lady's Luncheon, Athena walked in a daze back to her living space, outrageous hat clutched blindly in her fingers. So long as she didn't think about anything, she couldn't poke holes in Yvana's theory, or contemplate the likelihood that Julia had secretly murdered the Goddess out in the wastes. Back in her shared apartment she was alone. She pulled her notebook out of the desk door she'd claimed, and without really looking at the words wrote _Returns, one and ½ months later_, then after a pause added _without Goddess_.


	76. Masks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> IT'S HERE! 2077 FIRST BATTLE OF HOOVER DAM AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Masks

It was hot as hell in the New Vegas afternoon, as the vox populi crowded the streets of Freeside. Drunks stumbled from hole-in-the-wall bar to hole-in-the-wall bar, beggars pleaded for money, chips, water, meat, anything at all. Mercenaries hustled for work and the gangs all eyed each other sullenly from cracked and broken stoops. When the rabble cleared they'd rumble, but the Kings almost always won. The street smelled like vomit and fried rat meat and alcohol and sweat, and the rancid water that kept the sewers cold. On the strip the smells got better. Drunks got escorted back to Freeside if they were nobody and gently back into the casinos if they were somebody. Ladies in nice heels and ostentatious dresses stalked down the streets clutching little purses and smoked cigarettes in long thin cigarette holders. Mercenaries on the job stalked to and from casinos, or just silently glowered next to men in nice suits or women with high hemlines and low necklines. Military Police with black helmets and cattleprods weaved in between Mr. House's ungodly automatons with their cartoon faces and 9mm automatic hands. Though the smell of vomit and shit was notably absent, the smell of sweat was just as prevalent as it was in Freeside. Colonel Anders was relieved to be safely ensconced within the cool, dark game room of the Ultra-Lux.

Out of every luxury provided on the strip, climate control was by far Colonel William Augustus Anders' favorite. There was nothing that amazed him quite so much as central air. He grew up in poverty, his father was a sharecropper or a cowboy for most of the Colonel's life. He hadn't necessarily hated that life, but the New California armed services promised better than tin shacks and cured brahmin and every possession owned by the landowner or stolen or charity. At first that hadn't been true, when he was a private. It wasn't much worse than working someone else's land, though, so he stuck with it, and eventually it became true. He was a Colonel, with a fat pension waiting for him and in contact with some of the most powerful players in the Mojave. Yet to him there was nothing better than the fact that it was so hot outside, but so cool inside.

Currently at his table was a successful caravaneer, a senator and his wife, a mercenary, and a green private on leave from McCarran. The senator was a thicker man, but he still had some of the stout strength he'd put to use during the NCR-Enclave war. His wife was elegant but of age with the senator and could no longer be called beautiful. She wore an expensive shoal made of what was rumored to be Deathclaw hair but was really cat. The private was a red-faced young man from New Adytum who gawked and prattled about the cool beauty of the Ultra-Lux, yet in spite of his obvious gormlessness still managed to win a hand every once in a while.

The caravaneer and the mercenary were both drunk and they both had red hair but in every other way the women were exact opposites. The merc was taciturn and hard, her leathery skin covered in scars and tight against her bones. She was losing badly despite being in possession of the best poker face Anders had ever seen, too stubborn to ever admit defeat on a staggering number of terrible hands. The caravaneer was conversely much more personable, softer, and better at poker. She was the toast of the table, before Anders had ever joined them she'd wowed the senator and his wife, and the private was clearly smitten with her. It was hard to tell if she reciprocated. The redness of her cheeks could just as easily be attributed to the heroic amount of whisky she'd imbibed as to the private's earnest and stumbling flirtations. Anders had to admit she was pretty, but if he'd come to Vegas to see pretty girls he'd be over at Gomorrah instead of surrounded by the porcelain-faced cocktail girls of the Ultra-Lux.

At least the air was cool. There were two things the Colonel cared about, air conditioning and the Dam. When he was given command of the greatest man-made structure of the old world it was the best day of his life. He had two kids, and he was married twice, but his kids were strangers and his wives divorced him. The Dam, though- the Dam was eternal. It had survived nuclear hellfire and the ravages of time. The great concrete Goliath would be his legacy, what he'd talk about at the Veteran's Club after he retired. He loved its electric hum, the steady drip of its ancient pipes, the sting when it shocked him. He would do anything for the Dam, and that was how he ruefully found himself in Vegas.

_All roads lead to Vegas_ he glumly reflected as he once again took stock of everyone in the Ultra-Lux's game room. The elite of the NCR all poured in from the Long 15 and the Divide, along with the desperate, the starving, the huddled masses all drawn in by the neon lights and promise of a better tomorrow. The caravaneers, the mercs, the beggars and the drunks all mixed together and with an equal chance of success. It was a true American city, but America was dead.

Colonel Anders hated New Vegas. With all his heart, he'd never hated anything more. Not his drunken father, not the Sargent who left him to die near Reno, never was there ever an enemy Anders hated more than he hated House's strip. And yet, he was on the strip more often than not, desperately trying to drum up support and push powerful people into throwing their weight behind his massive charge. It was not a position he was well suited for. The stress of lobbying for support drove him to drink. He was a skilled enough commander to recognize the threat that the raiders across the river posed, but he was too poor a politician to get anyone to believe him, least of all the drunken, bourgeois revelers that the NCR elite metamorphosed into when they arrived in Vegas.

“It's really quite incredible. I can take you to see it, if you like. I'll be leaving with my escort in the next couple days, and I can promise you safe return when you've finished touring,” he lied. While they'd certainly be safe while accompanying the Colonel in charge of the Dam back to Hoover, the senator and his wife weren't important enough to take troops away from defending the Dam. At best, he'd send them off with one green private from Arroyo and hope they'd chased off the Jackals at REPCONN on their way out.

“I'm afraid we have a prior engagement the day after tomorrow,” the senator's wife politely declined, “Back in California.”

“Just as well,” Anders drunkenly sneered. The caravaneer told a bawdy joke about being escorted by soldiers and the table laughed gaily, the private a little too loudly. Even the merc chuckled. Colonel Anders took another swallow of his martini, and then waved down a masked cocktail waitress and plucked two more from her tray. _At the other casinos the girls always smile, no matter what_ he thought glumly when he stared into her doll's face. He was halfway through the second martini when the broadcast came on.

The merc had left, and been replaced by another member of NCR's high society, some businessman who owned a chain of robot repair shops up and down the coast. Anders was just as unsuccessful in swaying him to the Dam's cause as the senator and his wife. His clumsy attempts to procure some refurbished protectrons for his baby were charmless and slurred. He was rapidly approaching the point where he'd be too drunk to function, and summarily tossed from the Ultra-Lux. Conveniently, he discovered the perfect excuse to leave before that happened.

The commotion from the bar drew the attention of his companions before he noticed. People near the exit of the game room began getting up and filtering into the bar and lobby, having caught snippets of Mr. New Vegas's special report and desperate for more. The senator caught the attention of one of the doll-faced cocktail waitresses and asked what was happening. When she said it was something to do with Hoover Dam, that finally caught Anders's notice.

He drunkenly stumbled out of his seat and pushed people out of the way as he made it to the bar. One of the bartenders on a tip from the kitchen staff had set up a radio, and everyone was gathered around it, nervous and upset.

“... Now, it's too early to give an accurate count, my beloved listeners,” Mr. New Vegas said, “But estimates are upwards of one hundred thousand men wearing crude leather armor are right now engaging with NCR forces at Hoover Dam. Although they appear to be armed with mostly scrap weaponry, experts estimate that they will overtake the Dam in a matter of hours, utilizing superior numbers. I promise to keep you all updated as further reports warrant... New Vegas, I just want you to know in these delicate times, when the whole world's a little shook up, I'll always be there for you. All you have to do is turn on the radio. There's a whole lot of shaking going on, and I think Jerry Lee Lewis agrees...”

Colonel Anders was gone before Jerry's first note, stumbling drunkenly out the lobby and into the oppressive heat of the Mojave midday sun. He was blind in the light and blind in the drink, and so conspicuous stumbling down the Ultra Lux's light-up steps and past the fountain that he was immediately intercepted by a Securitron.

“Sir, would you like to return to the casino?” the boxy robot gently prodded. It bounced merrily in spite of the cartoonishly severe face on its monitor and its tone was meant to be gentle. The Colonel stared dumbly at it for long enough to demonstrate just how drunk he was, then slurred, “Take me to the train.”

“Of course, sir, immediately,” the Securitron cheerily clasped him by the arm with its metal claws, then carefully wheeled him just a little down the street to the NCR monorail to McCarran. “Have a good day, sir,” it said as it left him with little fanfare by the MPs.

“Alright move it along, rummy,” one of them said to him as he tried to stumble past.

“I have to get to McCarran,” his tongue felt like a fat wet slug in his mouth but he still managed to choke the words out. He couldn't quite understand that one of the MPs was physically restraining him to prevent him from walking up the station's steps.

“Sorry buddy, but the attack's goin' on, and everything's locked down 'till we get those hippies sorted out,” the soldier tried to tell him, but he accidentally wrenched free of the man's grasp and stumbled backwards and bonelessly fell down on the cement.

“The attack?” he said dumbly, after he'd sat for awhile.

“On the Hoover Dam, rummy. Shouldn't you be harassing some girls at Gomorrah?”

“I should be at the Dam,” was all Anders could think to reply, after slowly processing what the MP said.

“Oh yeah? I should be at Gomorrah,” one of the men joked. Anders rummaged around in the pockets of his gambler's suit, but came up with only a handful of chips. Belatedly he realized that he'd left his wallet with the cashier at Ultra-Lux. He sighed slowly, then gathered what little authority he had left and with much deliberation rose to his feet.

“My name is Colonel William Augustus Anders, service number 502, Commander in Charge of the third infantry brigade, stationed at Hoover Dam until further notice,” he even managed to sound relatively sober, “And I demand transport to Camp McCarran so I can be briefed on how and why the men and women under my command are dying.”

He swayed a little. There was a pregnant, nervous pause as the two MPs nervously glanced at each other, then back at him. They eyed him with more scrutiny, sizing him up. He wasn't dressed in military attire, but he did have a square-jawed, meat-fed look. His hair was cropped close in officer style.

“Fuck, Rutinsky, do you really think...” one of them nervously asked to the other.

“He's still a rummy,” the one called Rutinsky narrowed his eyes and examined the drunk man in front of them like he was an insect, “Take him up to receiving. She'll know what to do with him. I'll keep watch here.”

The other MP shrugged his shoulders in agreement. He grasped Anders by the arm to lead him up the stairs and said, “C'mon, rummy. You better fucking pray you ain't who you say you are.”

Receiving turned out to be a very pale woman in glasses. She had big ears, but was sort of pretty in a delicate way. Then again, in Anders' eyes everyone looked much more attractive.

“Yup! Anders definitely arrived, at, uh... 9:30 AM. So he definitely was on the strip...” she bit her lip after flipping through the six pages of arrival-departure logs she had clipped to her clipboard, a long list of names and numbers written in cramped, hurried calligraphy, “But everyone working that shift has rotated out. We'll have to get someone from base to come clarify this is him.”

“Oh, come _on_,” Anders moaned impotently. At least they hadn't cuffed him. Receiving ponderously rotated through the numbers on her desk's rotary phone, each spin of the dial seemingly longer than the last. _999_ the Colonel thought dryly.

“Receiving, in Las Vegas Boulevard Station for McCarran Command,” she finally spoke into the receiver. The phone was connected directly to another in McCarran, attached by a cable bolted to the monorail track like an oily black vine. There were no other lines. Before the line was secured, there was talk of making lines all the way to Camp Golf but no effort had been made. For the time being all other assets were connected by radio. Rumor had it the casinos were all wired together in a phone system, with separate switchboards for each casino, but the truth was at best each casino had its own intercom and that was it. The Atomic Wrangler employed messenger boys to relay notes from the desk to rooms and vice versa.

“Hey Rhonda. We think Colonel Anders is here but he doesn't have any ID on him. And he's drunk. Could we get someone who can identify him over here?” Receiving asked. She received a reply that Anders couldn't hear, but it seemed good news. She smiled and hung up, then said, “We better get him some coffee or something, 'cause the Colonel's coming down herself. Said they've been looking for him.”

Anders didn't need coffee, because he'd just heard the most sobering sentence he'd ever heard in his life. Once upon a time he'd been told by a Sargent that he was going to die. He believed it then and he believed it now.

The monorail took only two minutes to span the distance between McCarran and Vegas Boulevard Station, so it took exactly two minutes for the Colonel to arrive. She wasn't a very tall woman, with brown hair so neat and meticulous it was practically a helmet. There was something odd about her, something deeply unsettling- a sort of blankness. She'd been in the army as long as Anders, but he'd been infantry and she'd been a Ranger, and although he wasn't privy to many details of her service with the Rangers, he'd heard some very disturbing rumors about her career. She'd fought against every one of California's many enemies, sometimes more than once. She'd fought Enclave, Jackals, Vipers, Great Khans, Brotherhood, and Fiends in service to California, and there were rumors she was so determined to fight the Master she'd drawn up an assault on the peaceful mutant settlement of Black Mountain. She'd also been gunning for Anders' job at the Dam. She took the eastern raiders as seriously as he did, but she had differed in opinion as to what the proper response to them was. When she marched into receiving, she eyed him once and said only one thing.

“Yep, that's him.”

Then she spun on her heel and marched back to the monorail. Anders followed closely behind. The monorail ride only took two minutes. The only passengers were the Colonel and Anders, sharing the same cab in complete silence. She stood. He sat. They were two of the most important and powerful people in the Mojave. When they arrived at the McCarran station, Anders somehow dead sober and completely black-out drunk at the same time. On the platform they heard a noise not unlike a distant atomic explosion.

“What was that?” Anders asked. It was Boulder City exploding, and with it hundreds of Legionaries and dozens of Rangers. But the soldier guarding the McCarran station only shrugged his shoulders, and waved both Colonels inside.

Two weeks later, after he'd been stripped of his rank, Will Anders was found by a drifter in a Freeside Alleyway. He was face down in his own vomit, dead, and the drifter stripped him of his stained gambling jacket.


	77. Mars, Bringer of War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mars, Bringer of War was written by Gustav Holst in 1914 and it is the first suite of his "The Planets"

Mars, Bringer of War

PFC Rachel Dumont's grandmother was old enough to remember the administration of President Aradesh. She was born the year Shady Sands ratified the NCR constitution, and when she was six years old the President visited her small California town to congratulate them on their induction into the first nation of the wasteland. He delivered a speech in her small town's dusty square. Chelsea Kebler remembered him as being larger than life, a man made of stone who was impossibly dignified.

“He had sad eyes,” she later told her granddaughter, “Like he could see the whole wasteland, see all the suffering. He knew all of us, he did.”

Although he only spoke for a scant fifteen minutes, Chelsea lived in that moment for a lifetime.

“He wore a crisp clean suit, which was very rare in those days. It meant he was rich, rich in water. It was very expensive back in those days, not all over everywhere in everyone's house like it is now. Back then everyone had to get by on what they could hold, nobody trusted nobody.”

“To make money, my mother would let travelers sleep in our house. You see, our house had three separate rooms, and in the room that wasn't a bedroom there was this old couch. It was rock hard then, and it hasn't got any better with age,” Chelsea explained to her granddaughter in the living room of her three-bedroom house on the selfsame couch, now covered with a plastic slip, “But the town got visitors so rarely there weren't nowhere for them to stay, so she'd let them sleep overnight on the couch for one bottle cap, and for another bottle cap she let 'em eat whatever mush she fed us in the morning. My father worked for the Water Merchants on one of their caravans, which was how we afforded such a big house, but the town weren't big enough itself to get a visit from the 'vaners. Whenever the water caravans visited Fuckville, the closest town to us what was big enough to get a visit from 'em, he'd come back with two big 'ole carboys of water slung over his shoulder, and one more he'd drag behind himself in a little red wagon with a bad wheel.”

Carl Kebler had been a big man, as wide as his house's front door. He had a wild beard and wore a greasy blue repairman jumpsuit with the name Harvey stitched on the back. An unsightly tumor was growing above his right eye, like a horn, but his kids loved him and he fucked his wife like a mad animal.

“Bill Moyer of the Moyers next door worked for the Water Merchants on the same caravan, and he said he couldn't carry as much water home, but my father told my mother that it was really because he spent all his wages on drink and whores in the Hub. Nadine Moyer used to prostitute herself to visitors for five caps, but wouldn't let them stay at her house since it would made my mother angry, plus she only had the one room and six kids with different colored hair besides. Don't smirk, one of them became your grandfather.”

“Anyway, because father was away for long periods of time, mother would rent out this sofa to strangers who passed through town for a little extra money. One night, a man wearing a vault jumpsuit for Vault 12,” really Vault 15, but Chelsea always remembered it as Vault 12 because of prejudice, “Vault 12 stayed at the house, and when we woke in the morning, he and my sister Emry were gone. We aren't sure if he kidnapped her, or if they run away together, but she was only ten at the time. He could've lured her away with a nuka cola. Anyway, after that, we couldn't afford to stop renting the room, but we all slept in mother's bed if there was a stranger on the couch, and she slept with a knife.”

Carl Kebler was a good man, and he worked hard, but it still wasn't enough to completely support his family of six. The afternoon he walked home to find a family of five, his wife told him Emry was carried away by a wanamingo. Even if he forbade her from renting the couch, the family couldn't afford not to. That same night, Nadine Moyer gave her husband Bill the clap, or perhaps it was the other way around.

“It was a hard life. When President Aradesh came and visited our town, it was the most people come to visit us at one time ever. He had soldiers, and aids, and even his daughter came with him. There was no way they were all going to fit in our living room. He brought water. That was part of the deal back in those days, if you joined the NCR, they'd give you a ton of water. But I never thought the president would deliver it himself. But he did. And he even gave a speech, too,” at the memory Rachel's grandmother started to cry a little, “He said, he said, 'We stand at a precipice. This small California town is on the very edge of the world, teetering between prosperity and ruination, between civilization and barbarism. That is what makes it, and you, most important to the future. In all of you, I see the power to change the future; in all of you I see the resilience of the past. We stand on a precipice today, the fulcrum on which the world teeters. We all have choices to make, some more difficult than others, but everyone's choices are important, more important than the choices made by our ancestors. For we stand at the edge of an abyss, a vast darkness that threatens to consume the world when the last light of civilization is snuffed out. And here, we carry that light with us- against the darkness. We carry the light together, and together we make a new nation, the New California Republic. A Republic, which means we work together, side-by-side against the dangers of the wasteland, together against the end of civility, decency, and humanity. The choices we make today, and for the rest of our lives, will decide the future. The stakes have never been higher, and our challenges greater than they've been in thousands of years. But together, together in a new nation, we can work towards a new future, a better future. History is not made by self-interested individuals standing alone, but by groups of people coming together, and working with each other. This small community has been a model of cooperation for generations, and I'm proud to be here today thanks to each of you coming together and deciding to join the NCR, the first nation of a new world. I am here to tell all of you that you are **not alone**_**. **_We stand on a precipice, yes, but we stand together. That is what it means to be a Californian, to be part of the New California Republic.'”

There was more to the speech that Rachel's grandmother forgot, and some of the words she mixed up or turned around, but that was the gist of it. President Aradesh spoke somberly, elegantly, and clearly. He spoke somberly, elegantly, and clearly in the last four boondock towns he gave the speech to, and in the next ten boondock towns he'd visit before he died. The speech was boilerplate, but much like Chelsea, the other new citizens of the NCR found a lot of inspiration in it.

“When I heard that speech, I knew this was something special. Things changed in town, too. Armed patrols would check on us from time to time and make sure everything was alright. A doctor from the Followers would come and visit once a week and treat everyone who was sick. Everything got better. Even the water tasted better,” Chelsea broke out in a wide smile, “When I was sixteen I signed up for the army; me and your grandfather. After everything the Bear had done for us, we felt like we needed to give something back,” she dabbed at her damp eyes with a handkerchief, “I've always been proud of my service.”

Unfortunately, Chelsea didn't live to see her granddaughter follow in her footsteps. She died when Rachel was nine years old, after a short battle with cancer. All while she underwent treatment she stressed that it was because of the NCR that she had made it to the ripe old age of eighty. Her mother died at forty-one, and her father when he was thirty-nine.

Even though she couldn't be there in person, Rachel was positive her beloved grandmother Chelsea watched her enlist and was proud, wherever she was. Rachel signed up at fifteen, and at sixteen cut her formal education short for basic training. She was too late for the NCR-Brotherhood war, but California needed more men and women out east, along the Long 15 and the Divide and in their newly-acquired Mojave territories.

Boot camp brought out the best and the worst in Rachel. She'd been preparing for a military career her entire life, and it showed in her discipline, her loyalty, and her tenacity. At the shooting range, she got a ribbon of merit for accuracy. On long marches she never got tired. When the drill sergeant got tired of her cocky attitude, he ordered her to scrub the barracks with her toothbrush, and she did it with a smile on her face.

“That girl's going to be a general someday,” the drill sergeant mused to his commander the day after she cleaned the barracks.

“I know,” replied the commander, “I just hope I'm retired by then.”

It took absolutely no time at all for Rachel to earn a bad reputation. At Akeisha Moon High School she was fairly popular with her classmates, and participated in extracurricular activities, mostly the Patriot Club and Spirit Club. When she left school for boot camp the fervent patriotism that won her numerous Spirit Club Pie Bakes soured into a holier-than-thou attitude that won her no respect from her peers. She always talked down to them, or berated them, and snitched when she caught them engaging in illicit activities like smoking tobacco or sneaking off base. Although they couldn't openly say it, even her superiors were sick of her attitude, and tired of her brown-nosing. She had the tendency to follow them to the Officer's Club where they'd slip away from her, then lurk outside in the shadows waiting to pounce as soon as they left. When she wasn't belittling her comrades or sucking up to her superiors she talked like she was trying to top President Aradesh's famous “Precipice” speech. Everything was the most important and grandest event in the history of humanity, and it all led back to the greatness and rightness of the NCR. The other recruits used to joke about the “moral imperative” of the bowel movements she made with “righteous vicissitude.” If they didn't loathe her, they were scared of her. Her nationalism turned bloodthirsty on the battlefield, and in exercises and drills she was aggressive and never pulled punches. She also often assumed a rank that wasn't given to her by the commander, and if the other recruits didn't do what she said she resorted to violence to enforce her authority-less commands. If she hadn't gotten in trouble for her bullying she would've been selected for the rangers, but as it was she was in trouble often. The final straw that almost saw her washed out was when a new recruit (she was forced to join a different battalion after her old one left her behind in detention) unwittingly questioned her loyalty to the Republic. She was given a court martial, he was sent to the hospital.

With that mark against her she was stuck in the infantry, but she didn't care since she wanted to be infantry like her maternal grandparents, anyway. In her opinion the rangers were too showy, and the real heroes were the front-line soldiers. When she was given assignment at the Hoover Dam, on the very edge of civilization, she was ecstatic. It was only at the Dam did she finally realize that out of her grandmother's forty-year career in the military, Chelsea only had a handful of exciting or interesting war stories.

Every day at the Dam Rachel woke at four in the morning, showered, ate in the cafeteria, and took second watch on top of the east tower for six hours. Every day, four in the morning, shower, cafeteria, east tower (the one still standing). Wake up, shower, breakfast, tower. Wake up, shower, breakfast, tower. Wake, shower, breakfast, tower. She was as popular among the men and women stationed with her as she was with the men and women who trained with her. She still had a bad habit of assuming her own authority, and only barely avoided getting in trouble when she talked down to one of the Rangers protecting the Dam. At the mess hall everyone avoided her, and the tower only needed one lookout, so the detail was boring and isolating, and it went on for months. After three months with only two letters from her brother and three from her mother to keep her company, she requested a transfer. At the Dam she was on the edge of the world, Aradesh's precipice, but all the action seemed to be west. She hoped if she could transfer to the Divide, or Helios One, or even Vegas, she might be able to temper her solitude with a little state-sanctioned killing of the NCR's enemies, but her request was denied by Colonel Anders himself, who told her personally that he needed as many soldiers as he could get at the Dam, and then complimented her on her discipline and record. It was the nicest anyone had been to her since she started basic and later in private she broke down in tears.

At six months into wake, shower, breakfast, tower, she was promoted to private first class and given two days leave, which she opted not to take until Colonel Anders invited her to join him on a trip to the New Vegas strip. All she really wanted to do was go home, but it would take too long for her to travel back to California, and Rachel being Rachel, she couldn't refuse her superior.

Compared to the Dam, the strip was a breath of fresh air. Everyone was nice. Everyone smiled. Most importantly, Rachel didn't try to be a perfect soldier, and thus for two days she didn't alienate or piss anyone off. Anders disappeared as soon as they left the monorail station, but it didn't matter, because as far as she could tell everyone in Vegas was her friend. Even the bouncers at the casinos smiled at her. When she arrived at the Tops in her common clothes, one of the Chairmen took her aside with a sweet smile and led her into a fabulous room with more than a hundred ritzy dresses and let her take two of her choice, on the house. He waited outside the dressing room as she tried them on one-by-one, and told her how pretty she looked in each of them with a big white smile. He said his name was Swank. He was five or six years older than her. After watching her model two dozen lovely dresses he offered to escort her while she visited the strip, and she accepted. That night he was her first, and last. When she tearfully boarded the monorail, they promised to write each other.

The atmosphere was different when she returned to the Dam. A party of savages and raiders that was making trouble east of the Colorado was growing and so were tensions. Everyone was on a tight wire, and the electric buzz of the Dam seemed to get worse and worse. It was hard to believe any energy was making it to Vegas, as it all seemed to be running through every NCR soldier. PFC Dumont no longer felt isolated or bored, but now she wished she did. Now she was too scared to be a pain in the ass, but everyone else was too scared to notice. Soldiers started hoarding supplies, and carrying around extra ammo clips for their rifles like they were good luck charms. Something big was coming, and everyone could feel it.

One day, it came. On the day that the Legion army under the command of Legate Graham struck against the NCR forces stationed at Hoover Dam, PFC Rachel was standing guard in the east tower, daydreaming about her tryst with the Chairman named Swank. At the sound of gunshots, though, she immediately snapped to attention.

“This is Tower 3 I hear shots fired on the east bank, repeat, shots fired on east bank, over,” she barked into the radio. A confirmation came from the command module, a dirty tin shack built between Tower 2 and Tower 3, and then nothing, while the sound of rifle fire increased. Through binoculars she could see some of the action, but it didn't make it to the Dam for another forty minutes. The sight of that many men swarming over the hill forced her heart up into her throat. The radio squawked what she already knew. They were here. It was war.

Captain Godfrey gave the order to evacuate the Dam of all civilian personnel while Rachel sniped with mixed success from her position on the Tower. There were hundreds of enemy combatants, thousands. More of them poured over the hill, more than she thought possible. Every time she thought they were done another centuriae would crest the hill, led by big men in metal armor with ridiculous hats. After fifteen minutes they'd overwhelmed the guard and were on the Dam. Rachel retreated into the tower, then took the elevator down.

Inside the Dam was chaos. All the drills and all the training they'd done amounted to nothing when the Legion attacked. The Dam's commanding officer, Colonel Anders, was nowhere to be found, and none of the captains (who, thanks to insufficient staff, were overseeing two to three times as many soldiers as they were supposed to anyway) could agree on the right course of action. Captain Godfrey told her to head to the turbines while Captain Rosenthal told her to get back up the tower. Sargent Tran was supposed to be in charge of evacuating the engineers, but no-one could find him. He was already dead, hacked to pieces by Legionaries. Godfrey was supposed to be Rachel's commanding officer, so she headed to the turbines, only to find two dozen engineers who had no idea what was going on. A few soldiers milled about but were just as confused as the engineers.

“Who is your commanding officer?” she leaned over the metal guardrails and shouted at them.

“What's going on up there?” was the only response she got, from a private who didn't have his rifle on him.

“There's an attack. From across the river,” the privates and engineers were startled, most looked scared, too, “Who is your commanding officer?” she asked more insistently.

“Godfrey! He told us to come down here!” shouted back a different private. Rachel sighed.

“Me, too,” she groaned, “Look, you all stay down here, I'll see what he wants us to do,” and with that she rushed back up the stairs to the offices. Captain Godfrey was nowhere to be found, though, and no one she talked to knew where he went. None of them looked ready for combat. Shots echoed through the cramped corridors. The Legionaries had entered the Dam.

Rachel did what she always did, which was take charge.

“Clear everything out of the meeting hall, storage, the rec room, whatever. Throw it all in the hallway and make barriers, one every couple of feet, so we can fall back,” she yelled at the gathered soldiers. A few started following her orders. In the control room there were still a few engineers and she asked one of them to volunteer to stay behind while she ordered the others to the turbines.

“Get a torch,” she ordered the volunteer, “Seal this door from the inside,” she grabbed the quartermaster (her superior) and thrust him into the command room, “You stay here with him. If, God forbid, they make it through that door-”

“Shoot 'em,” the quartermaster finished for her and she nodded her head. Most of the soldiers were still idle, unsure what to do and wary of the Private First Class yelling at them to the tune of approaching gunfire.

“Are you pieces of shit just going to lie down and die?!” she roared at them. It wasn't a speech for the history books, but it was enough to get the soldiers moving. They jumped to attention and started cluttering the Dam's narrow hallway with chairs and tables and nuclear waste barrels. Rachel chased the engineers down to power plant 02, where she ordered the privates there to escort them up to the visitor's center and all the way to Boulder City.

“What do we do when we get there?” asked a young man with a squashed nose.

“Find someone else to tell you what to do,” Rachel said and then left before they could ask any more questions. On the stairs back to the offices she could hear gunshots echo, louder and louder as she climbed. At the top of the stairs, a wild-eyed private greeted her.

“Rangers showed up and the phone's ringing,” he said cryptically. Rachel pushed past him to Colonel Anders' office, where the rotary phone on his desk was in fact ringing. As far as she knew, it was connected to only one other phone.

“This is Chief Ranger Hanlon, who am I talking to?” he said when she picked up.

“This is PFC Rachel Dumont, sir,” she answered, “And before you ask, I'm in charge here so you might as well talk to me.”

Chief Hanlon chuckled warmly, “Well, I suppose you'll do, then.”

“What are your orders, sir?”

“Well, since Anders is nowhere to be found, and I don't have to listen to Oliver, the Dam is being evacuated,” Hanlon was sitting in his office at Camp Golf, surrounded by a whole platoon of soldiers desperately trying to coordinate with the ranger camps, Camp Hopeville, Camp Searchlight, and Mojave Outpost. In the flurry of activity, he was a calm center. He'd even cracked open a beer when he got word of the attack, “Cover the retreat, but when you see an opportunity to get out of there, get out of there. Let 'em chase you all the way to Boulder City, and when you get there we'll have more words.”

“But sir, what about the Dam?” Rachel was speechless for a moment. This was her first big battle, something that would define her career, and she was supposed to turn tail and run in the opposite direction? The thought of it drove her to insubordination. Hanlon laughed it off.

“Don't you worry about the Dam, alright? It was there long before you and it'll be there long after. Right now, you and all your fellow soldiers are more important than a building, no matter how big.”

“Sir, yes, sir. But if it's alright with you, I think I'll be the last one out,” she glumly conceded.

“Well alright, then. But if the whole invasion force is right on your heels I want you to run straight through Boulder City, alright? No stopping for a beer,” he sadly ordered, although he couldn't help but feel proud of the brave young woman on the other end of the line. Despite his cool and collected exterior, he was more nervous than not about his plan to sacrifice Boulder City to save Hoover Dam, and more aware of the sacrifices it would mean than he let on. Yet, this young woman gave him hope, and confidence that the NCR still had strong, brave citizens who weren't afraid to do the right thing, no matter what the cost. Or at least, citizens who were willing to clean up the messes left by the people in charge. At that moment he could've killed Anders with his bare hands.

When she hung up the phone, Rachel felt better than she'd felt in a long time, even better than her long night with Swank. A superior she admired trusted her authority, and gave her a plan to carry out. She was so wrapped up in her good feeling that she hardly noticed how loud the shots echoing in the corridor were. The Legion had made it out of the office kitchen and were advancing slowly down the hallway, tearing apart the NCR's makeshift barriers one at a time.

“Ranger Chief Hanlon gave us orders to retreat,” she told the assembled press of soldiers, “When they're almost to you, I want you to fall back and keep going. Don't look back, hoof it all the way to Boulder City, is that clear?”

“What if we want to stay?” Private First Class Kowalski asked, then added, “Uh, ma'am?”

“I don't outrank you Kowalski. If you want to fight to the last man, I can't stop you,” Rachel couldn't help but smile, “And I'll be joining you if you do.”

And so they held the line. At the end of the hall the enemy swarmed, but the barricades held them up, and any that charged dropped dead at the insistence of two or three bullets. Another barrier would fall, and under the cover of gunfire a few more soldiers would retreat, although plenty stayed. In the cramped hallway the sound of rifle retorts was deafening, and pretty soon none of the defenders could hear at all. If any of them had survived, it probably would've caused permanent ear damage. As it was, the silence had a calming effect. Without sound, all they did was point, and shoot. Point, and shoot. They used simple gestures to communicate with each other, but other than asking for ammo or telling the others they were reloading, there wasn't anything to say. It was a shooting gallery.

The press just kept crawling forward, an inexorable wall of red and rust and blood and men, men, men. They fell two, three at a time, two to three bullets a man. Some men didn't even die, three bullets in them, but fell to the ground, and only died after being trampled under the heels of their fellow legionaries. It was a human meat grinder, and it did not stop advancing. It was **Hell**. On the opposite side stood Rachel, Kowalski, Leppert, Kronmueller, Davies, and even a few Rangers like CPL Autumn Jameson and CPL Richard Falk.

The average man died on the second shot, so that came out to ten men a clip. Each of the soldiers in the Dam carried three clips standard, plus the two or three they'd been clutching to their breasts and muttering prayers to for the last month. Whenever another soldier retreated, which happened less and less as the fight wore on, they'd leave behind a clip for those still fighting. Occasionally, a centurion decked out in metal armor would make it to the front of the line with a gun and kill somebody, or a decanus would throw a spear like the one that tore out Nell Embry's throat, and the soldier closest to the fallen would inherit all their remaining ammo. Even still, they started to run low.

In the silence Rachel's head was filled with beautiful music, and about halfway through the battle she recognized it. When she was a child her grandmother Chelsea had a record player in her house, a rare luxury that Rachel would listen to every time she visited. Her favorite record was The Planets, by Holst, and during the battle she replayed the first song from the suite over and over in her head. She couldn't remember what it was called, but it felt appropriate.

As the Legion advanced and the defenders gave more and more ground, Rachel was on the front lines, with a clear view of the enemy. Some looked cruel and determined, others looked frightened and unprepared. It occurred to her that most of them were the same age as her, sixteen and seventeen-year-old boys decked out in crude leather armor, equipped with scavenged machetes. _We're just children_, she thought, _children killing children killing children_. The fight wore on and there was no end to the enemy. After she gunned down a young boy being pushed forward by his peers she had a thought. _They must be covering the entire Dam_, she realized, _these men must've been a mile away when the battle started, and they've been marching up to the meat grinder this whole time. They probably didn't even know what they were in for_. She was right. The men they were cutting down had no means of escape, as they were being pushed onward by a line of Legionaries thousands long, marching resolutely into Hell.

Unfortunately, the Legion had more men than the Hoover Dam had bullets. They were running low when they fell back around a corner and into another group of soldiers retreating in the opposite direction. They were trapped, not that any of them had enough energy left to care. The entire Dam was taken, save their little last stand in the offices. _Swarming with little red ants_, Rachel observed, _stripping the last bit of meat from a great white bone_. The Legion occupied every corner of the Dam, pressed together in such great numbers there was standing room only. There was no way out. The fight was over soon after that. The ratio of Legion men to rifles skewed too far to Legion men and a few of the younger ones were able to close the gap while the more senior soldiers provided cover.

Rachel killed a few who got close with her grandfather’s knife but fell after she was shot three times through the chest. By that point, though, the Legion was already on the retreat after a couple thousand of them had been blown up in Boulder City. PFC Rachel Dumont's body was recovered. She was given a posthumous Medal of Honor and promotion to officer, and buried in the veteran's cemetery outside Shady Sands, next to her grandparents CPT Norman and CPL Chelsea Moyer.


	78. The Scum of the Earth

The Scum of the Earth

Fermented fruit drink slid down her throat like a silk ribbon. If she accidentally inhaled the pungent odor she'd cough and sputter, but she wasn't drunk enough yet to accidentally breathe in the fumes. It was more moonshine than wine, the kind of turpentine that could strip paint off a protectron. Avata had been brewing it for a while, before the food rationing, first in a still and then in a mason jar. Julia drank it like water. The taste was good. It tasted like oblivion.

When she walked into a room everyone stopped what they were doing and greeted her. When she walked through Ouroboros people would kiss her hand and give her gifts. Her wrists were adorned in bands of precious metals, studded with beads and gems. The fingers on her right hand had a ring each, mostly pewter but on her ring finger she wore three engagement rings with a diamond each. Fine silk ribbons she wove into her hair, of all different colors, yellow and blue and green and purple all shiny and smooth. She even started wearing cosmetic horn-rimmed glasses like the Glass Men used to. She figured if she covered herself with enough shiny baubles and trinkets, no-one would be able to tell what a wretch she was, and if she drank and smoked enough, she could forget she was the Scum of the Earth, which was why she never stopped drinking or smoking. It wasn't especially hard for the High Priestess of Hecate to stay loaded 24/7. Hecate had a personal stash of bufo and sheesha that was enough to keep a single person intoxicated for the rest of their life. Since there was no more Hecate, Julia helped herself.

She avoided the Daughters for as long as she could. It was the most she could do. For two weeks she kept herself to Atia's apartment. She re-read books she'd read a hundred times before, and discovered fresh and not-so-fresh bottles of liquor she'd stashed away when she was blacked-out in months and years past, little gifts to herself from before she was a shell, little reminders of the life she'd once lived. She found much absolution in playing with Julius, being there when he was done with school and putting him to bed every night, but two weeks was all it took to drive her to the temple, restless and hungry like an animal. She had to be where the action was, no matter how devoted she was to removing herself from it. Sneaking into the temple was easier than she thought it would be, even with what was almost certainly a .2 blood alcohol level. Somewhere in the back of her mind was the nagging insistence that Hecate's temple shouldn't be so vulnerable, although she did know more of it than most, but mostly she was happy to slip into Hecate's chambers unobserved.

She half expected to find the goddess waiting for her, enveloped in a thick cloud of smoke and smiling an infuriating _I know something you don't _smile. For an instant the past months felt like a horrible nightmare, something she could wake up from. Instead, Hecate's room was empty, more empty than Julia had ever seen it. It smelled like incense and sheesha and her, just a faint whiff of rotting flowers and motherhood under everything else. Her chambers were outfitted such that she'd never need to leave them, as she hadn't, for years at a time. Julia quickly made herself comfortable. As far as she was concerned, the goddess's chamber was her inheritance, her rightful claim.

It only took two days with Hecate's hookah for company to nearly drive her insane. Nightmares of Hecate and Heart and most of all Dark Mother, the woman the goddess was long ago, tormented her. And when the nightmares weren't enough, they invaded her waking hours. The smoke of Hecate's hookah made people. When Julia was two hours into a bufo binge they'd appear out of the darkness. Heart's headless body would lunge at her, arms blindly groping. Hecate would apparate, face twisted in rage, and she'd scream, over and over, curses and scorn and disapproval, deaf to Julia's plaintive pleas. When she thought the worst was over, somehow the smoke would twist and become even worse. She saw herself, but younger, face contorted much like Hecate's in mindless rage. Harpy emerged, small and vulnerable, and smoke-Julia gunned him down. Over and over, she'd tear him apart with her sub-machine gun, but at some point Harpy twisted and metamorphosed into Dark Mother. That wasn't the worst. She fled from the room in terror when the scene changed again, and instead of gunning down Harpy or Dark Mother she was executing Atia as she begged for mercy.

The priestesses welcomed her back with open arms. They greeted their greatest enemy like she could bring the dead back to life, like there was no-one on Earth they'd rather see. In their loving embrace Julia felt like slime, and she almost threw up, but none of them noticed. At Yvana's suggestion, they suspended their work for the day and headed to the discotheque as one, dragging Julia along with them.

The lights and music made her feel dizzy, although that might've been the bufo, and she desperately searched for an opportunity to break away and return to her waking nightmares, but as soon as she found an opportunity to escape the priestesses she ran right into Avata.

“Jules!” once again Julia couldn't escape the embrace of an admirer. Finally, she did vomit, all over Avata's shoes. Avata just laughed, “Ha! We need to get you another drink!”

The bigger woman ushered her over to the bar, then slid behind the counter and gave Julia her first taste of her moonshine. When the blueish-black liquid touched Julia's lips she was hooked. Here, finally, was something strong enough and sweet enough to drown her demons.

“I call it 'Avata's Vinegar,'” she smiled at Julia's enthusiastic swallows.

“It tastes a lot better than vinegar,” Julia sputtered and flashed her own million-dollar smile back. When she took another swig she accidentally inhaled the fumes and coughed Vinegar out her nose. Avata laughed again. They caught up over the bar's Formica counter. Julia pressed Avata about what she'd been up to, what the team was up to, how was Bella's leadership, was she doing okay, did they ever figure out a way to preserve those plums nobody was eating? Avata was happy to answer all of her questions, but eventually she had to ask some of her own.

“So, what exactly did you do while you were gone?” Only someone she knew could cut her so deeply. Only someone she was close to could ask her that question and expect an answer.

“I got clean,” she took another swig of Vinegar, “It was the absolute worst.”

“It sounds horrible,” Avata said, and they both laughed.

Avata didn't ask her any more questions. The two of them spent the rest of the night hiking to a scenic spot on the outskirts of the valley. They talked about nothing of importance, bullshit and gossip and goofy thought exercises. When Julia brought up the prisoner's dilemma they had a boisterous argument about Avata's insistence that she'd never, under any circumstances, accuse another of a crime she wasn't sure they'd committed. Even without subtext Julia wanted to tear down Avata's idealism, but she held out, even in the face of Julia's most convincing arguments.

“I could tell you were gone,” Avata said unprompted. They sat on plastic lawn chairs she'd dragged up the hill to her special spot, drinking Avata's Vinegar and staring at the majesty of the Milky Way. Silence followed.

“I missed you,” Julia said, after carefully choosing her words and drinking another deep swallow, “I missed everybody.”

“Why did you leave?”

“Because the Goddess willed it,” Julia said. She miserably swallowed more moonshine. She wanted to vomit again, but it wasn't physical, it was more like she wanted to vomit up her soul. Maybe if she could purge herself of it she'd never feel guilty or broken again.

“... Well, whatever the Goddess had you do, if you didn't like it,” Avata said, “Then it was wrong.”

They sat in silence for another couple minutes. Without saying a word, Julia rose from her chair, then collapsed in Avata's, and cuddled up next to her. They fell asleep that way. A few days later, Avata and all the rest of Julia's old squad had to leave on a routine scouting mission. Even though everyone treated her like royalty, Julia never felt more alone. She drank a gallon of moonshine a day, and covered herself in more finery.


	79. The Shape of Things to Come

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a lot to do with one of the central themes of this story, imo, about the way sexism and patriarchy can colonize the thoughts of even people who have ostensibly escaped it and are opposed to it.

The Shape of Things to Come

Julia gasped awake in a cold sweat. Her head pounded like the discotheque's bass. The taste in her mouth was awful, a mix of vomit and vodka and moonshine and tobacco and blood sausage. She was on the ground, but she couldn't tell where. She coughed up something black and shakily propped herself up. Wherever she was it was dark. It must've been the temple, because the walls and floor were cold stone. There were dark, dank prison cells deep within the temple, and Julia had the comforting thought that perhaps she was in one, to die and be forgotten.

_That'd be nice_, she thought through her hangover, _that'd be fair._ Unfortunately, it was not to be. She was where the priestesses left her, just outside Hecate's chambers. After a half-hour in darkness the automatic lights flicked on. It was six in the morning.

It took Julia another half-hour to summon the energy to crawl into Hecate's room. Once inside she ate an apple, drank a glass of water, and smoked bufo until she passed out. She was only asleep for an hour before her bufo-inspired nightmares woke her up. Visions of her victims clawed at her face, shrieking without words. Whole villages rose from the grave to drag her down into the cold earth with them. She awoke, rushed to the sink and vomited. It didn't drain, and was the same black color as her earlier bit of bile. She decided it must be the blueberries in Avata's moonshine. She poked bits of apple down into the drain.

Before she knew what was happening she found herself downstairs, in the temple's control room. It was sweltering hot, as always, but empty. The whir of computer fans was deafening, the hum of electricity and the rattle of the huge steel servers. Julia glided to a terminal and delicately woke it up with her little finger. The root menu flashed to life on the screen, offering what was probably the most comprehensive collection of information on the southwest wasteland, the United States, and the world at large.

She clicked idly through menus, not absorbing anything she saw until something in the index of Legion encampments caught her eye. Dry Wells. The records kept on every Legion camp were exhaustive, but Dry Wells seemed to be particularly detailed, no doubt at Hecate's personal request. Weather reports, water temperature, the Colorado's height, the layout of the Legion camp, troop rosters and movements, and the history of the region all poured out in a torrent of green computer script. Julia clicked through it all until she found a file labeled “Twisted Hairs- 2120-2259”. There was no way to tell the accuracy of the starting date, she discovered as she browsed the file, but the end date was as accurate as if it'd been carved into the canyon walls of Dry Wells itself. There was a list included of former Twisted Hairs, but it was mostly men who'd been absorbed into the Legion. Julia saw Raven was included, still alive and in service to Caesar, and noted that Athena was included, but there was no Dark Mother, nor could she find herself. _Most of the women didn't make it_, she glumly noted. Certainly not to Ouroboros. They were forgotten by history, like so many women before them. Tears formed in the corners of Julia's eyes, but she didn't notice.

“Hey, are you okay?” Yvana startled her. She hadn't even noticed the priestess enter, much less walk up to her. She sniffed and wiped the tears from her eyes, smudging her smudged facepaint further.

“Yeah, yeah, I'm fine,” she sniffed, “Sorry. Just... Just thinking about the past.”

Yvana understood without need for further elaboration. Everyone in Ouroboros had a tragic past. Even Yvana wasn't immune to the vicious intrusion of painful memories, of a history better left forgotten lest its grief swallow her whole, lead her down dark paths no-one ever returned from. As a member of the ruling priestess council, she knew the consequences of losing yourself in cruel reminiscence better than most.

“It's hard not to,” she airily gestured to the computer-banks, “When it's all laid out there in ones and zeroes.”

She smiled a knowing smile and Julia returned it, and they let the air between them fill with sorrowful understanding before continuing. Suddenly Julia had a thought.

“How do you edit these files?” she gestured to the monitor, and clicked back to the menu listing Legion encampments.

“Well, usually a Maenad or Harpy-” though there weren't many reports from Harpys anymore- “will submit a new report on paper, and we type it up. Sometimes they only give us a verbal report and we transcribe it, but we always send a copy down to archives. All the priestesses review the reports and then we combine them all together and write a summary for Hecate. After we send it up to her we usually make copies of the files we're changing, edit the copies, and replace the old files,” Yvana explained at length, then pointed out the hotkeys for copying and replacing a new file.

“You going to Temperance tonight?” Yvana asked suddenly. Julia was startled out of her contemplation.

“Well, it's my event, so I suppose I ought to,” she chewed her lip thoughtfully, then glanced over her superfluous eyeglasses and added wearily, “Although, if I didn't, I'm sure it'd be just fine.”

Yvana walked behind her and hugged her around the shoulders playfully, “You should be proud of your girls, High Priestess. They're strong and smart and no, they don't need you.”

Yvana was one of the few priestesses on Hecate's special counsel that Julia truly got along with. There was something about the young woman, a certain grim fatalism mixed with dogged determination that Julia responded to, that responded to Julia. For most daughters loss and longing and sorrow stopped at the Strophades corridor, but it had managed to follow Yvana into Ouroboros, not like she'd ever admit it. Even still, she carried her burden with her, and it made her good friends with the High Priestess. It helped her speak her mind, kept the fear of hardship from reducing her to euphemisms and quiet whispers like the other women. It hadn't made her popular, but she didn't soften the truth.

“You're right. I guess I'll just go and get drunk, then,” Julia smiled. It hadn't taken her long at all to position herself as head of the Daughter's Temperance movement, in fact they'd basically begged her to take command. The prevailing opinion among the priestesses was that as long as Hecate's top aid was in charge, they couldn't possibly be murdered for not acquiring the goddess's explicit permission for their lady's society. Julia, for her part, was so accustomed to command and so eager to think about something other than what happened between her and Hecate on that Utah plateau a month earlier, assumed authority like it was her idea in the first place, without giving thought to why her command was so appreciated. In any case, the Daughter's Temperance Union was an easy opportunity for copious alcohol, so it was unlikely Julia would stay away for long. After all, she had to do something to keep her self-loathing from hanging her in Hecate's quarters, and drugs and alcohol hadn't steered her wrong yet.

At least she wasn't hooked on Med-x anymore. One very rough week in the badlands had broken her of that habit, withdrawals so bad she'd practically begged to be discovered and murdered by deathclaws, Legionaries, raiders, anybody, so long as she stopped sweating and seizing. None came, so here she was, back in the goddess's holy city, lying to everyone she loved, and everyone who loved her. It was hard to kick the habit, though, especially in Ouroboros, and in a few more weeks she'd be shooting up again, lying to herself about how much and how often.

“What are you doing today?” Julia asked Yvana, still wrapped around her shoulders like a boa.

“Well, we've got Maenad Diana arriving between ten and twelve today, I'll probably type up that report, unless someone else gets to her first. Then we've got Jane coming in at one, with word from the Bull Pen, and that'll mean a lot of editing, so everyone'll be doing that,” Maenad Jane was an older woman with a cigarette-gifted baritone voice who infiltrated the Legion by dressing as a man. The 'Bull Pen' was a load of old fat centurions who were defacto in charge of Caesar's territories. They frequently got together and ran their fat mouths, on the whole a valuable and easy source of information on Caesar's movements and plans.

“You've got some time...” Julia said, “I was thinking, maybe, y'know, I'd go to the baths and, uh, clean up a little bit... Would you... Care to join me?”

“Yeah, sure. Why not?” the invitation was so pitiful Yvana had no choice but to accept. She didn't have to entertain the High Priestess for long, however, since as soon as she'd stripped off her bangles, her wraps, her necklaces, her rings, her fine leather sandals, her earrings, and her glass jewelry and submerged herself in the warm water Julia fell asleep.

When she awoke Yvana was gone, replaced by a gaggle of younger Daughters who all stared in wide-eyed adoration at Julia. They informed her that the other priestess had stayed with her until they arrived, then had to leave for some important business, but before leaving asked them to keep watch over her and make sure she didn't drown. She thanked them.

“I think I'm clean enough, now,” she said after examining her pruned fingers. She did feel better after some decent sleep, admittedly, but it was tempered by the feelings of guilt and self-loathing that bubbled up whenever anyone idolized her as much as these young ladies. The girls adoringly watched her as she hoisted herself out of the bath and began re-applying her gaudy trinkets. Julia dutifully ignored them until one spoke in a hushed voice.

“You know the Goddess, right?” a girl with hair dyed beet red asked. Julia slid a dozen bracelets of different colors and materials over her left arm.

“I do, yes. I commune with the goddess regularly,” Julia managed to say without betraying any irritation.

“She... She has a plan, right?” the same girl asked. The others all took careful pains to stare elsewhere, yet listened intently. Julia took a moment to fix her skirt before replying.

“Yes,” she answered patiently, “The goddess knows all and sees all. She has seen the shape of things to come,” Julia adopted a more dramatic tone before continuing, raising her arms out and staring blankly into space like a good seer would, “Caesar's end has already been foretold. He will find his death when the Bear and the Bull meet over the Bright Light City, and his followers will be as sheep, and the Daughters of Hecate shall be shepherds, and assume his rule, each as a Goddess in her own right. And the word of Hecate shall spread to all corners, and she shall be feared and loved and worshiped.”

She finished her grand prophesy by farting. Fortunately the sound of running water covered it up, and she left her adoring audience engulfed in her putrescent cloud while she went to re-apply her face-paint.

All the girls bought it. _And why wouldn't they?_ Julia thought bitterly to herself, _It's exactly what they want to hear_. To be fair, Caesar's end in all likelihood was coming, she hadn't pulled that completely out of her ass. It was well known among the priestesses that he had a terminal brain tumor that was only getting worse. Perhaps if he didn't disdain modern medicine so much he'd have a good chance to survive it, but as it was now it would take a miracle for him to make it even five years. The violence between the NCR and his Legion was escalating, too, and although Hecate didn't have as many informants in California or Nevada as she did in Arizona all evidence pointed to a brutal defeat for the Legion in Las Vegas. It didn't really take a psychic to see that Caesar's time was running out. All the Daughters of Hecate had to do was watch and wait.

The rest of Julia's day went as expected. She sat in on Jane's debriefing, sipping moonshine and smoking bufo in a dark corner as Jane recounted the last meeting of the Bull Pen. The Legion was marching on the Hoover Dam in what was sure to be the first of many major military operations in a war the NCR didn't seem to be aware it was engaged in, yet. According to Jane, the Bull Pen was terribly excited about attacking the Dam, terribly excited about Graham leading the assault, and terribly excited about not having to participate. Having once personally witnessed an assault on the Dam, Julia thought their enthusiasm was unwarranted, as any military force occupying Hoover would have to be completely incompetent to lose it.

After Jane's debriefing Julia helped set up that evening's Temperance event, which was bingo, an anti-fashion show, and a tutorial on disabling and disassembling land mines. Julia mostly set up streamers and balloons, and drank and messed with younger Daughters. For the anti-fashion show she dressed in nothing but turquoise stones, hundreds threaded together into a dress and gloves, and MC'd with a Harpy named Sunflower. Everyone drank to excess but unlike the night before Julia didn't need any help climbing to the top of the goddess's ziggurat. She made her own way up, and even managed to get through the door. When she awoke the next morning, still hungover, she accessed Hecate's personal terminal. Using the hotkeys Yvana taught her, she copied the list of former Twisted Hairs, then edited it. She added every single woman she'd grown up with, then replaced the old list like Yvana taught her.


	80. The Shape of Things to Come, Part 2

The Shape of Things to Come, Part 2

At first Julia wasn't sure she heard her correctly. It was, after all, noisy and crowded in the Maenad bar. In truth, though, it wasn't the sound of two dozen other ladies playing canasta, gossiping, and drinking, that made the anxious envoy difficult to understand. More it was that the message was so anathema to Julia's understanding of the world that her brain wouldn't and couldn't process it.

“The Goddess requests your presence,” the envoy whispered again. As Julia was already quite drunk it took a lot of willpower to refrain from loudly correcting the young woman, one of Hecate's Golden Children; that the goddess was dead, that she'd killed the goddess and the goddess's body was at the bottom of a mesa somewhere getting eaten by scavengers and flies. Instead she recovered just enough composure to be scared. She sucked in a sharp breath.

Julia slammed her palms down on the Formica table. All the girls at her table jumped; all eyes were on her. She dug her nails into its surface and clawed herself up into a standing position, swaying unsteadily. She took another deep breath, and with a bow said, “Excuse me ladies, there is business I must attend to.”

On the outside she was calm and composed. On the inside she was a canary caught in a cage about to choke to death. It was obvious either someone was setting some sort of trap for her, or she'd just inadvertently caught someone in a lie. It was possible someone had discovered Julia's ongoing lie and was merely taunting her through messenger. It was possible she was walking into a private trial from which she'd never return. She reasoned, though, that it was more likely that someone was posing as Hecate to enforce their will over Ouroboros. She'd already ranked the council of priestesses by their likelihood to attempt some sort of coup, and at least half the council she considered more likely than not to try it.

“What exactly did the goddess say? Did she leave her chambers?” Julia interrogated the young girl once they left the bar. The bright wasteland sunlight caught her off guard, so much so that she almost fell backwards through the door, but she grabbed onto the frame and steadied herself.

“Are... are you okay, ma'am?” the young messenger asked. Her name was Holly, and she'd been born to a woman of the Hangdog tribe, not that she'd ever know that. Holly had grown up, like all of Hecate's Golden Children, revering the High Priestess; she'd never seen Julia drunk before. Julia took a drink from the mason jar she didn't realize she'd grabbed before exiting the bar.

“I'm fine, sweetie. It's just not every day the goddess calls for you,” she lied through her teeth. It was disappointing how easily Hecate's Golden Child fell for the lie.

“I don't really know anything,” Holly shrugged. Not knowing anything was easy, and came naturally to her, “I was just told to get you.”

Julia cringed but said no more. It was a short walk up to the temple's control room, where Holly politely and humbly excused herself. Julia wanted to grab her by the shoulders, to scream at her, to tell her everything she knew was a lie, to tell her to Wake Up. Instead she waved the young girl off, let her go live her life.

There was no trial like she feared. Nor was there a coup, or an assassination. Instead what Julia found was the council of priestesses huddled around a single computer monitor, nervously whispering and arguing. They looked less like a cabal of the wasteland's most powerful women and more like a cadre of teenage girls at a sleepover, anxiously waiting for their favorite crooner to perform on _American Bandstand_. Yvana was the first to spot her.

“Julia!” she cried. The light from the monitor gave her face an eerie, flickering glow. She ushered the high priestess over.

“Alright, great, she's here, so let's get this started,” growled another priestess, an older woman whose elaborate face tattoos were accented with ritual face-paint. Julia asked what was happening.

“About forty minutes ago there was a new message from the Goddess,” Yvana said, “She wanted the whole council gathered together before she told us more.”

“Well, we're all here, so let's get this fucking started,” Olaya hit the command prompt. The servers groaned to life. Green script slowly spilled out across the screen, ticking through one sentence at a time. The goddess said:

For the first time since Caesar emerged from the ashes of the past, he and his slave-army know defeat.

It was a long time coming, a tall climb for a long fall.

I have seen this, and I have seen the shape of things to come.

As quick as Caesar's rise was, his fall will be all the quicker.

Loss will precede loss, defeat will follow defeat.

His allies shall leave him, one-by-one, until he stands alone.

And in that time, in five years' time, Caesar the man will be dead.

He will die alone, betrayed by his own mind, dead of tumor medical science could have cured.

Caesar the God will be forgotten soon after.

In the ruins of his legacy, we will build our kingdom.

We shall purge the salt he has left upon the earth, and our garden shall grow to encompass the world.

All children shall be Hecate's Children.

All men shall be Hecate's Hounds.

And all women shall be Hecate's Daughters.

And that was it. To the council it was the word of god, and they all took a collective breath. All Julia could think, though, was _mine was better_.

The council confirmed that the goddess wanted her message read aloud to Ouroboros, and they volunteered the high priestess to do so but Julia declined. After some fighting they came to the conclusion that each one of them would read a single sentence.

Julia skipped the ceremony. Instead, she withdrew to Hecate's chambers, where she found the code that would trigger the message. An automated missive, set to trigger in the event that Caesar attacked the Dam while they were still struggling through the Utah wastes. She couldn't find any more pre-written messages from Hecate. Finally, truly, there was nothing left of Dark Mother. Nothing that could tell Julia what to do, or where to go. Silence.


	81. Nightmares

Nightmares

Julia dreamed she was standing on the floor of the temple's central chamber, below the goddess's throne. It was bright, too bright, from sunlight that couldn't pierce the facade of the temple in the real world, as though there was a large window somewhere there shouldn't be. On the ground in front of her, a woman lay face-down. It was Hecate. Her dreadlocks were solar flares flowing out from her sun, writhing and roiling hypnotically. From the way she was lying, it was possible she was sobbing, or prostrating herself. In the dream, Julia forgot she was dead.

“M-mother?” she asked in Twisted Hair, her voice small and high like a child's. The word did not echo in a void, all around her was a hum, a vibration from the walls that drove deep into her brain. She started to walk towards the prone figure. The room was filled with tan spiders, each the size of a silver dollar, crawling on the floor and walls and in the goddess's long, thick braids. As Julia moved they jumped like grasshoppers and clung to her bare legs. She pulled them off, one by one, brushed them out of the way and walked closer and closer, the humming grew louder and she realized it was coming from the spiders, the millions of spiders that were everywhere, jumping on her, clinging to her, they pinched when she pulled them away. She walked closer and closer, until she was right up next to Hecate. She saw that the goddess was lying on the circle, the big circle in the center of the floor with the stars around it that was secretly an elevator, that the goddess had shown her a lifetime ago. She realized it was an elevator to hell.

She woke up when she was six inches from the goddess, about to touch her and Hecate suddenly jerked up and revealed that her face was a skull. There were marks all over Julia's legs where she'd pinched herself in her sleep. She sighed irritably and got up. She loaded up a hookah with bufo and hashish. It was one of the mildest nightmares she'd had in a long time.


	82. Bones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short biography

Bones

The American Southwest is, was, and will forever be a land of bones. Whether it is the Morrison Formation, the titanic graveyard spanning much of North America, great Jurassic claw raking the belly of the Sonoran Desert and as old as stone itself; whether it is the bones of the Pueblo or Jornada Mogollon two-thousand years ago; whether it is the bones of the Apache at Camp Grant in Arizona, one-hundred and thirty-six women and children; whether or not it actually is bones; it is a land of bones. It is bones in the bleached-white dead trees, in the chalk and the sand. It is bones in Utah, where the lone and level salt flats stretch far away. It is bones in New Mexico, where calcium slowly oozes off underground ceilings.

White Sands, New Mexico, was bones. It was adjacent to White Sands Missile Range. White Sands Missile Range was an important target for the Chinese, as the base was a conspicuous laser research center. It was also a sort of fuck-you to the whole idea of atomic bombs, one final nuclear explosion on the Trinity test site, to perhaps put a pin on the whole idea for good. Among the leading scientists and scholars of 2077 it was seen as likely that any future civilization, were there to be any civilization at all after the Nuclear Apocalypse, would be incapable of doing something so horrible as to create more atomic bombs. There wouldn't be enough resources, the scholars and scientists conjectured. In private they prayed that where the resources were available, the know-how surely wouldn't be. So, it was not odd that the Trinity test site was bombed, as it made sense as a symbolic gesture. If nothing else, it got rid of the plaque commemorating man's biggest step towards his own obliteration. It was unclear, though, why White Sands National Monument was also targeted.

There was no strategic advantage to targeting the area. Technically, it was included in the area set aside for the Missile Range, but the only building for miles around was a ranger station and visitor center. The reason, simply, was a small error in the missile's trajectory. It was targeted at the nearby air-force base, but it fell short by a few hundred miles, instead blasting White Sands' white sand into towering, glittering gems that glowed in the dark. The superheated gypsum became radioactive selenite, beautiful crystals that, near the center of the explosion, reached as high as two-hundred feet. The crystals were highly prized for their light and their beauty, but there was only one tribe with the means to harvest them.

Before the war they were the employees of Big Buck's Friendly Drilling and Wells, a subsidiary of New Mexico Standard Oil, a subsidiary of Petró-Chico, a subsidiary of Poseidon Oil, a subsidiary of Poseidon Energy. They were drillers and welders and riggers who worked in the fields and lived nomadic lives, traveling with all their equipment to new pre-fab houses in different parts of the southwest and Mexico to set up automated oil well after automated oil well, anywhere there was even the slightest hint of petroleum. They were out in the field when the bombs fell, starting another twelve-hour shift. They didn't even know the world ended. They knew when the black rain fell. Thankfully, they had top-of-the-line safety gear, which they were no longer being billed by New Mexico Standard Oil for use of. After tromping through radioactive sludge they were running out of supplies and hope, but then luckily one of them found the entrance to Vault 35. The door was closed, but that didn't matter much to the employees of Big Buck's Friendly Drilling and Wells, most of whom were wielders. Their thermic lances cut through the vault door like butter, and for the final locking mechanism they blew it open with thermite.

Vault 35 was designed to test human behavior in an extremely isolated environment. To that end, as soon as the door slammed shut all five hundred residents were sealed into individual living quarters. By the time the Big Buck's field workers found them, the residents of Vault 35 had gone months without any human contact. Supposedly, the terminals in their rooms were to provide a way for limited inter-vault communication, but they never worked.

Some of the vaulters had already killed themselves. More were insane and inconsolable. They were from a broad base of different backgrounds, although nearly a quarter of the population were supposed to be of Scandinavian extraction, based on a racist and pseudo-scientific belief that Scandinavians had self-selected genetic traits that made them uniquely equipped to withstand extended periods of isolation over centuries of cold, lonely winters and long, lonely boat trips. Then Vault-Tec plunked the vault directly in New Mexico, America's 36th ranked state for Norwegian residents.

It wasn't an oversight, but a concerted effort by the vault's designer to limit the number of Latin-Americans, Mexican-Americans, and Native Americans in what turned out to be the most gruesome and harmful torture performed in any of Vault-Tec’s horrible vaults, therefore theoretically limiting the number of Latin-Americans, Mexican-Americans, and Native Americans who would survive the Nuclear extinction that befell much of America in 2077, and thus inherit the future. After all, the Norwegian population in Albuquerque was just over 1,200, well more than the 125 required by the Vault's plan. And any one of those lucky 125 would be de-facto denying a spot to one of Albuquerque’s 40,000 Native Americans. In a victory for bald-faced racism, the pseudo-science reason to trap these 'Norwegians' in Vault 35 never had a chance to be tested, as most of the self-reported Norwegians in Albuquerque might have Norwegian names, but in fact had diverse European heritages. Most of which were actually more Polish than Scandinavian. But that was still white as far as Vault-Tec was concerned, so the true intent was fulfilled. In the end, though, even with the deck stacked, the ratio of “whites” to “non-whites” in the vault still evened out to 1:1, especially once the roughnecks (who by the time they made it through the black rain were one-hundred percent “not white”) arrived and killed off all the men.

Even though Vault 35 was the cruelest psychological nightmare ever inflicted on that large a group of human beings in history, an act so vile and horrifying that it would give history's greatest monsters pause, the roughnecks didn't have much sympathy for them. As far as the boys of Big Buck's knew, they'd had it way worse than these soft vaulters with their ready-made meals and cushioned beds. There was never a reason given for killing off all the men, but it was easy enough to infer.

With the vault door blasted off and more than half the doors in the vault unable to close, some of the survivors decided they might as well try and make it outside in the wasteland. The survivors of Big Buck's Friendly Drilling and Wells and Vault 35 divided. Those that left took their thermic lances with them, for protection and to perhaps plunder another vault should they happen to find one. Fortunately for the residents of the next two closest vaults, what they found instead was towering crystals of glowing selenite in what was once known as White Sands National Monument but which quickly came to be known as the Crystal Forest, the Crystal Field, the Forest of Light, and the Tower of Light, depending on which tribe you asked. Although the monument to man's great reckoning was visible for miles around (especially at night), the men and women that left Vault 35 were uniquely equipped to profit from it. Those men and women came to be known as the Big Bucks, and although they lived closest to the selenite, they did not have a poetic or grandiose name for it like the other tribes. The selenite was a part of them, as integral to their life and their living as any part of their body. They called it Bones.

The Big Bucks quickly became a powerful tribe. The selenite proved to be a reliable light source, highly prized across the wasteland. The arts and tools of metalworking and welding and drilling were passed down from generation to generation, all in service of harvesting the Bones. They made armor out of the crystals, and jewelry, and they pierced their skin with the stones, in elaborate and beautiful patterns that no other people could ever hope to replicate. Perhaps most importantly, though, was how successfully they translated their skills at drilling wells for oil derricks into drilling wells that pumped clean water.

Of course, that was the men of the Big Bucks. Women weren't allowed to drill or weld or cut stones. It had been that way before the war, and the men saw no reason to change that. Even though they outnumbered the men five-to-one, the women accepted it as the way of things, too. They wouldn't have accepted polygamy, though. Not if they had their own means of survival. The men controlled the drills and the lances and the saws (and most importantly, the knowledge), though, so they got to say who married who. Since none of the women were present when the roughnecks murdered all the men, some women were married to their husband's or brother's or father's or son's murderer, and never knew. Many of them left the vault because they assumed it was Vault-Tec's fault.

For the next hundred-plus years the descendants of those men and women lived comfortable lives, for the New Mexico wasteland, at least. Very rarely did they have to resort to cannibalism, and never did they cannibalize their own. The more they got to know other tribes through trade, the luckier they felt about that.

Like most tribes their health wasn't terrific, but any man that survived to their mid-twenties survived to their seventies or eighties. Women only very rarely survived past their forties, almost exclusively because they reached menopause. In the Big Bucks, if a woman could get pregnant, she would get pregnant, and the chances of surviving any given pregnancy started bad and only got worse with age. The same was true of the Twisted Hairs. The same was true of most tribes.

Butterfly's mother didn't survive her birth. Butterfly barely survived her birth. Even though he had four more wives, her father was still grief-stricken. He had loved Butterfly's mother dearly. She was a gentle woman, who had a lot of love to give. Even though she was only sixteen, she was matronly. She would've been a good mother to Butterfly. She would've been a good mother to anyone.

Butterfly's other mothers didn't care for her. They said she was ugly, and they refused to care for her, so her father beat them. Butterfly didn't know that, but she knew that even though they took care of her, her mothers did not like her.

Her father liked her, though. Even with six other wives he somehow never managed to produce a male heir, and so to bide his time he treated his eldest like she was his son. He taught her numbers and letters, how to track, how to identify plants, how to haggle. He didn't go so far as to teach her the skilled trades that had profited the Big Bucks for so long, but he taught her how to be self-reliant, and to think for herself, which was more than most girls or even boys were taught in the tribe.

He taught her unthinkingly, idly, as he waited patiently for a son. Whenever one of his wives entered her third trimester his attention shifted away from Butterfly to his prospective male heir, but with every miscarriage, complication, and baby girl he'd return to teach her something new, mostly to hide from his own grief. He gave Butterfly an education, and showered her with affection and attention, but it was never about her. It was always about him.

Naturally, when she became marrying age, he thought nothing of marrying her off to an older man in trade. That's what daughters were for among the Big Bucks. They were property, and all the time he'd spent with Butterfly did nothing to change that. The fact that Butterfly didn't want to be married did nothing to change that.

Fortunately for her, by the time she was of marrying age, the Big Bucks had been converted to Hecate worship. A harpy by the name of Avaela came to the tribe a few years prior. The Big Bucks by the Crystal Forest were a priority for Hecate. The trade network that traversed the southwest made their home a major hub, and Avaela was given near-unlimited resources to make sure that the Big Bucks fell under the goddess's sway. She arrived with a whole caravan's worth of resources, brahmins with heavy saddles and chests, each one carrying a rarer and more beautiful treasure than the last. Avaela was given the tribe's blessing to preach, and her caravans headed straight back to Ouroboros, now loaded with whatever could be plundered from what was left of White Sands Missile Range, treasures far rarer and more valuable than whatever garbage they'd brought to appease the Big Bucks.

Hecate worship spread quick, directly correlated to the precipitous decline in the infant mortality rate. The success of Dark Mother's cult was so quick that it scared the men. The old boys club of the Big Bucks was a hair's breath away from exiling Avaela and banning Hecate worship, when something unheard of happened. For the first time in the tribe's history, the women of the Big Bucks used their voice. Never before, even though for the entire history of the tribe women had outnumbered men by a more than three to one ratio, had they ever decided the future course of the Big Bucks. From the first time the tribe left the vault, to who they trusted in the wasteland, to who they ate or when they ate them, did the women of the Big Bucks ever decide. That changed after Hecate's messenger arrived. Avaela was a smart, charismatic woman, and although the women of the Big Bucks didn't know the kind of power they wielded, she did. She mobilized that power for Hecate. Worship of the goddess was not banned. In fact, the whole tribe converted.

Butterfly didn't know what, but she knew something momentous had happened, something that was unprecedented. A subtle shifting of the balance of power within the tribe, not too great, but which changed everything forever. She knew Avaela was at the center of it.

Even with her unconventional upbringing, Butterfly knew that there was a marked disparity between men and women, young and old. Traditions older than the tribe dictated her place within it, no matter how good she was at tracking and reading and whatever else. The Daughter of Hecate, though, was different. She was not beholden to tradition, to the rules and roles that had defined life in the Big Bucks, and New Mexico before them. Since the beginning the Big Bucks were ruled by old men. Suddenly there was Avaela, a young woman, who took over the tribe with a deft hand. She was wild, untamed, and **free**. Butterfly looked up to her, and when the time came for her to be married, she turned to the Daughter.

It never occurred to Butterfly's father as he taught her to be self-reliant, she might someday want to rise above her position in the tribe. He never considered the attention he lavished upon her to be special, merely a distraction to waste time. She was shocked and appalled to be married off, treated like property, like every other young woman of the tribe.

Avaela took pity on her, and smuggled her away to Ouroboros. At the sight of Hecate's Grand Temple, with robots and women bustling back and forth between the surrounding buildings, Butterfly fell to her knees in rapture. If she hadn't been a believer before, she certainly became one then. She began training as a Harpy, but early in her education a new program was established in Ouroboros, an elite corps of cybernetically modified women who would engage in clandestine and far-reaching operations on behalf of the goddess. Although in time the selection process would become narrower, at first all it took to be a Maenad was passing “the ritual,” a test designed to ensure that only the goddess's best and brightest would join Ouroboros' elites. It was an exciting time in Hecate's city. Many young women tried to pass the ritual, but few succeeded. Butterfly was one of those few.

She was surprised she made it. It hadn't been her idea to make the attempt, a friend dared her to. At the time it was popular among the Daughters to challenge each other to the ritual. Many of the first Maenads only became so because of the fad. To Butterfly, it was a dream come true. Her success earned her the respect she'd always secretly longed for.

The cybernetic technology was new and exciting, with seemingly limitless opportunity for body modification. Every woman who passed the ritual was given a suite of standard upgrades, including the Y-3 implant, a Hypertrophy Accelerator, a reinforced spine, and a Logic Co-Processor. There was no limit to the number of optional implants a woman could have, so long as the Maenad's body could handle them. Butterfly could handle a lot of cybernetics.

One upgrade in particular caught her eye. Like all Big Bucks, her skin was implanted with selenite crystals all over her arms and legs. It made sub-dermal plating difficult to implant, and somewhat redundant, but among the options provided by the auto-doc, there was one that truly felt like not just an upgrade to her tribal markings but also in keeping with the spirit of them. Even among the cutting-edge cybernetics the Maenads had access to, the procedure was advanced. It required the removal of her selenite, replacing it and augmenting her entire epidermis with diamond-weave nanites, making her skin as tough as a deathclaw's hide. It was not a popular body-mod among the Maenads, as not only was it a difficult and dangerous surgery, but it made her sparkle in the wasteland sun. Butterfly would never again be able to travel through the southwest without drawing attention, which was fine with her. Whatever was out there, she wanted it to see her coming. She wanted it to be afraid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hooo boy did this chapter change a lot. Butterfly's tribe started out as a tribe of snipers living on a mesa, which is a very, very American Southwest thing, but I already have too many characters who are snipers, so I changed it to a tribe that lived on the edge of a nuclear explosion that "turned the sand to obsidian-like glass", which they chopped up and made various use of and to reclaim the land (which is from a Philip K Dick story) but then I did some research about White Sands which led me to selenite, because they're made of the same thing, and came up with the idea that actually made it into the chapter. For the record, White Sands when flash heated from a nuclear bomb would become a material that is described as "burnt plaster of paris" because that is what it is. Selenite, by-and-by, is moonstone, and Hecate is the Goddess of the Dark Side of the Moon.


	83. The Diamond Woman

The Diamond Woman

Legends of the Diamond Woman spread fast through the Legion. Speculatores and scouts would catch a glimpse of something shiny in the distance, then discover to their surprise it was a single woman, on foot. When pressed on details, they would stumble and mutter, until finally forced to announce that the light came not from her armor or her weapon but from the woman herself. For their honesty they were whipped, but with each new sighting the legend grew.

For her part, Butterfly directly interacted very little with the Legion. Occasionally it would be her responsibility to make a patrol disappear, but only rarely was a single contubernia of terrible importance to Caesar. In Kingman he'd killed far more of his own men, and only did the Daughters and the dead know that. The Daughters only just. It happened before there even was a Hecate, but the Daughters had discovered enough oblique references to Kingman scattered across Legion records that they were able to roughly piece together what happened.

Officially among the Legion there was no Diamond Woman. All orders were to ignore any sighting to the contrary, as it was evidence of moral turpitude or brain fever. Those few decanus who knew she was out there sensibly suggested that as long as they didn't bother her, she wouldn't bother them, which was mostly true. As far as any legionary knew, the Diamond Woman was a benign presence, a rare delight like rain or extra rations. Certainly she was beautiful.

The myths that took shape around her early in her career were mostly positive. Spotting the Diamond Woman was seen as a sign of good luck, of impending fortune, and an end to strife. It was a reasonable assumption. Beautiful, glittering women tend to be viewed positively. As the years went on, the Legion changed and so did the myths. The Diamond Woman began to take on darker roles, as a grim omen or portent of misfortune. A contubernia would catch a glimpse of her, then a day or two later be attacked by a deathclaw, or cazadores. A forward post might see her and then discover the route back to Flagstaff disappeared. Occasionally a speculatore would report seeing the Diamond Woman, then head back out into the wastes, only to get lost and wander for days until they died of thirst, their mysteriously unmolested corpse to be found mummified later. There were some who claimed she was an avatar of death and disease, that spotting her was a sure sign of coming illness, or water and food turning rotten and foul.

Of course, there were still plenty who asserted visions of the sparkling maiden foretold riches and success, specifically in regards to material wealth, and considered any belief to the contrary to verge on blasphemy. Plenty of Legionaries longed to catch a glimpse of the mythical Diamond Woman, the beauty who walked the wastes. Any man who saw her was lavished with attention and respect by their cohort. Stories of the Diamond Woman were more precious than currency, one man in a group as large as five-hundred who could conjure images of the Diamond Woman (from firsthand experience or not) would be a figure of some celebrity, their story sought again and again, against the orders of Legion command. Even still, though, her legend became more menacing as time went on. Bad things did seem to happen whenever she was around.

Then again, bad things happened in the wasteland all the time anyway. It was impossible to say whether or not she had anything to do with them, and opinions of her varied from person to person. For a time, Caesar himself was interested in her, and believed in his megalomaniac way that she was meant for him, that she would soon be his queen. He told no-one, but instructed his Frumentarii to seek out and find the mythical creature, and bring her to him. When his finest clandestine operators were unable to find Butterfly, he grudgingly gave up his fantasy, and instead ordered her execution, another petulant and entitled demand that would go unfulfilled.

It was a missed opportunity that Caesar was too proud to make his marital intentions known. If word of them had reached Butterfly- the Diamond Woman- she might have taken him up on his offer. She was in an odd place among the Daughters of Hecate. Direct engagement with the enemy was not the primary strategy of the goddess's organization, yet it was what Butterfly was best at. Subterfuge and stealth were integral to Hecate's mission, but Butterfly was visible for miles around, and there was no disguise that could convincingly mask her as anyone other than a living legend. For most of her early career as a Maenad she was farmed out as a mercenary for hire to other wasteland organizations, collecting paychecks that went straight to the temple's coffers. As time went on, though, (and as the Legion perpetrated massacre after massacre) the use of violence and force fell out of vogue in Ouroboros. Physical altercations came to be seen as masculine, a gauche and crass means of problem solving and endemic to the Legion; beneath the enlightened and advanced Daughters. Eventually, Hecate decided renting out her finest wasn't profitable or productive enough to continue, but she never quite found a good use for Butterfly besides.

Most of the time she ran errands. Carrying messages back and forth, supplying dead drops, scouting. A lot of her work entailed harming or helping local tribes, spraying pesticides and dumping fertilizers or poisoning wells and spreading disease. Sometimes she'd rustle brahmin, steal them from one tribe and deliver them to another under the guise of Hecate's divine judgment. She coordinated closely with Harpies to create displays of the goddess's “unsurpassed power” to intimidate and enthrall tribals. Butterfly referred to it as being the hand in a puppet show. From her mouth it was a derisive comparison, a glib quip about her wasted potential. To the Harpies she worked with she was seen as Hecate's Hand, that which gave and took in accordance with the Goddess's will. Butterfly's assessment of her job was far more accurate. As opposed to taking her orders directly from the goddess, she more often took her orders directly from Harpies, who knew their tribes and their territories.

There was one saving grace in her miserable under-employment in Hecate's hierarchy. For every shitty errand-running, grunt work, menial, demeaning, laborious job that Butterfly slogged through in her long career there was The Promise. That was how she thought of it, Hecate's Promise to all her followers, the promise that as soon as the time was ripe, the Daughters would descend upon the Southwest with a great and terrible vengeance, purging the Legion clean from the face of the Earth, the great reckoning that was coming. Eventually. The day was coming where Butterfly's talents would be in high demand, the part of Hecate's plan that the Maenad fit perfectly within. The time when subterfuge and sabotage would give way to all-out war, the end-all, be-all war for the southwest wasteland. Butterfly gaily imagined herself on the front lines.

As Hecate's influence waned, Butterfly was given less and less to do. The demand for stealth and subterfuge grew in tandem with Caesar's empire. Staging puppet shows for tribal communities was less and less important with less and less independent tribal communities. Once Project Remus completely usurped Caesar's surveillance apparatus, the need for scouts and observers declined dramatically. Her final assignment was poisoning the Crazy Horns with dysentery. There were no new assignments after that. Like the Harpies she'd previously worked with, Butterfly found herself with nothing to do.

Nothing to do but drink. Ushered into what she was assured was a 'temporary retirement' Butterfly was exhorted by the Sibyls to partake in the culture of Ouroboros, to enjoy herself with almost all the fruits of Hecate's blessing. She could eat as she pleased, and she could drink as she wanted, but on divine orders she was not to smoke. That was the case with more than a few of the faithful. Some were given strict diets; some weren't allowed to drink. The practice wasn't seen as odd. It wasn't any different from controlling who could have sex with who, which was a core tenet of the faith.

So Butterfly drank and danced (and mated. She gave birth to a healthy baby boy who joined the ranks of Hecate's Golden Children, and a less-healthy baby girl who was never seen again). She became part of the Daughter's Temperance Union and taught other Daughters how to box in a weekly class. There was never enough to do to keep her completely distracted, to quiet the niggling sense that she should be doing more, that she was meant for more. But, as always, The Promise kept her from rebelling. Even as she aged, and her joints stiffened (a side-effect of her untested augmentation. Her diamond skin grew less and less flexible as time went on) and she grew tired easier and practiced less, still the visions of violent victory on the front lines of a righteous future war kept her placated. So she drank and danced and fucked and fooled around and bid her time and tried not to think about growing older, all until one fateful boxing lesson.

“Avaela!” Butterfly was surprised to see her. She was older, and a little wider around the middle, and her hair was starting to grey, but she was still the same woman who years ago converted the Big Bucks of the Bones to Hecate worship. She was just as surprised to see Butterfly, all grown up and skin sparkling like the crystals she'd once lived among. They embraced.

“How are the Bucks doing?” Butterfly asked. The question came early, there hadn’t been enough conversation to brace Avaela for it, and her face said more about the state of Butterfly’s old tribe than any words ever could. To Avaela’s sad surprise, Butterfly was naïve enough to be upset.

“…But,” the Maenad stammered, “How?”

Avaela grimaced, “Well, the Death-Dealer came around promising the world, as he’s wont to do. Then, when the Bucks showed him their softness, he turned on them,” she sighed, “as he’s wont to do.”

Butterfly was dumbstruck. Avaela tried to comfort her, but involuntarily recoiled at the coarseness of her diamond-weave skin. Other Daughters in the class, all of whom had also lost their tribes, gathered around to comfort their instructor.

She knew that the Legion had swallowed most of the tribes of the southwest, but for some reason it had never occurred to her that Caesar might also have claimed the Big Bucks for his own. Beneath her bulletproof exterior there was still a little girl, whose whole world was her family and her neighbors and the Bones. Suddenly, that world was gone, stripped away in the space of two sentences and a bad-faith deal made by an infamous Centurion.

Class for that evening was canceled. Butterfly needed to be led back to the temple so she could sit and rest. Avaela held her hand and tried to tell her everything would be alright, uncomfortably unsure whether she was lying or not. She hadn't yet had a chance to tell Butterfly everything. She prayed she never would. Sadly, even if Hecate wasn't dead, there was nothing the goddess would've been able to do to keep Butterfly from asking her next question, as obvious and unavoidable as death itself.

“What about my father?” the Diamond Woman asked. For that difficult question, at least, Avaela had time to prepare.

“He was a good man,” the Harpy said gently. She stroked Butterfly's hand. “Too good for the Legion.”

Butterfly said nothing for a long time.

When the world came back into focus, Butterfly had more questions and growing anger, a sense of righteous outrage. Her first question was direct specifically at Avaela.

“Where were you?”

“I left a little before they made their deal with the Centurion,” Avaela explained, “I warned them. They didn't listen...”

“And Hecate knew what was happening?”

“Of course. Hecate knows everything,” Avaela patted the back of Butterfly's hand.

“Then why didn't she do anything?”

Avaela quickly pulled her hand away from Butterfly's. For a few moments she was too stunned to even speak. Not with one hundred years’ preparation could she have prepared for that question. No Daughter had ever been so blasphemous before. Had she known of Butterfly's reputation among the Harpies she'd have been even more taken aback.

“What?” she finally blurted.

“I said, why didn't she do anything? If you knew, and she knew, that the Big Bucks were about to be conquered, then why did neither of you _do anything_?” Butterfly was livid. It wasn't just her tribe, she realized. It was every tribe. At least eighty that had been absorbed, and at least sixty or seventy more that had been wiped out completely. Even with a buzz on, Butterfly could see them all, stretched across the badlands, men and women and children all cut down by the Bull while Hecate did nothing. In all the time she'd been looking towards the future, Butterfly hadn't taken a clear look at the present. In the temple's corridors she realized that they'd been at war this entire time. And they were losing.

“That- that is not the way-” Avaela struggled to justify something that had never been questioned before. Hecate's commands were divine, absolute and perfect. At least, that is what Avaela believed ever since she'd joined the Daughters. Her induction into the cult was not so different from Butterfly's. Among her tribe she'd been marginalized. Among the Daughters she was important. Like every other woman who joined the Daughters. Unlike the women who remained with their tribes.

“What of the mothers of the Big Bucks? Are they now mothers of the Legion?” Butterfly continued, not listening to Avaela. “How could you leave them behind? How could _any_ of us leave them behind?”

“How could I?” Butterfly stared into the middle distance.

“Hecate's will is not to be questioned,” Avaela said stiffly and removed herself. Butterfly didn't notice her leave.

Butterfly sat in silence for hours afterwards. She formulated a plan. Like Butterfly herself, it was simple and direct. Among the Legion there were many different legends of the Diamond Woman. Some saw her an omen of ill fortune. Of coming disaster. Of death. That evening, the evening she learned of her father's death at the hands of the Legion, she resolved to prove them true.


	84. Bones, part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who can say?

Bones, part III

They called her Marceline but that wasn’t her name. She didn’t have a name. Shadows weren’t given names. Only the Ròu Zhī were given names among the Nizh’dilt’é. The real Marceline was dead, though; she died before her shadow joined the Daughters of Hecate. So it was just as well that Marceline’s Shadow was known as Marceline.

A name was not the only thing the Daughters gave Marceline. After her tribe was conquered she was lost. Adrift in an unforgiving world. Her skills served her well, but they didn’t give her a purpose. Among the Nizh’dilt’é she was given a purpose, and trained in it since the day she was born. She was a Shadow, and without her people she was less than. As a way to survive she began stalking wastelanders, subsisting on their scraps like a radroach. It was all she knew how to do. The people she followed often died, either by the wasteland or by other wastelanders. It mattered little to her. If a wastelander killed her wastelander, she’d follow the survivor. For a month, she silently stalked a deathclaw after it eviscerated a young hunter from the White Legs. Unfortunately prey in the deathclaw’s path grew sparse, and both of them grew desperate for meat. Its senses heightened by gnawing hunger, the deathclaw soon became aware at the presence of food somewhere in its vicinity, and it only took Marceline’s Shadow a day to realize that food was her. The hard times were when there was no-one to follow, when she was lost and alone in the wasteland. Those were the nights when the ghost of the Nizh’dilt’é would visit her, their empty eyes asking questions their cut-out tongues could not. Eventually, a wastelander led her to Ouroboros. Among the Daughters, she found new purpose.

Among the Daughters Butterfly had purpose, too, but unlike Marceline’s Shadow, Butterfly’s purpose was never realized, and diminished with time. For years the life she lived for was dangled just out of reach, and only got farther and farther away as she grew older. Drowning her sorrows in alcohol and fine foods only tempered her malaise so much. She knew what she was. She knew what she had to do. Eventually, she couldn’t wait for someone to tell her to do it.

Hecate’s glorious war against Caesar and his slaves began with Butterfly and ten or so Harpies who likewise could no longer stand the ennui of Ouroboros. Not coincidentally, each one of them (like Butterfly) were denied some small part of Hecate’s debauchee largesse, be it bufo or wine or dancing. Unbeknownst to those Daughters, their beloved Goddess had found flaw in their genetic code (which she compulsively collected and devoutly read), and thus sought to head off lung cancer or alcoholism or diabetes in those followers before it had a chance to metastasize. For instance, she not only knew exactly how Polish Butterfly was (more than half of her dominant genes were from eastern Europe somehow still, to the delight of two-hundred-years-dead racists) but also how likely it was that she would contract throat or lung cancer, the odds of which declined by more than half so long as she didn’t smoke. The unfortunate side effect (at least for Hecate’s designs) meant that there was a small but dedicated group of malcontents who still had some of their wits about them, ten of whom (plus Butterfly) raided Ouroboros' armory and set out to conquer the Legion.

The real tragedy of their doomed expedition was that their plan was so fucking _good_. First, they killed the Legion garrison at Lake Powell, a brief conflict decided through the generous application of 40mm grenades. Then, when half the cohort at Shonto left to reclaim Powell, they slipped right past them and conquered Fort Veritas at Shonto. In a week Caesar's road to Utah was cut off, and Colorado was only accessible by the long road through New Mexico. Butterfly and her team established themselves on the front lines by fortifying Fort Veritas, and if Hecate sent a garrison to Powell the war could begin in earnest. A full five years ahead of her plans, Hecate’s army might have wiped out Caesar’s Legion and conquered the southwest wasteland.

Fort Veritas was located at a major intersection in Caesar’s roads, and as such was well-supplied and well-built, a testament to the hard work and ingenuity of all the slaves who died in its construction. It wasn’t Hoover Dam, but staffed with just eleven of Hecate’s combat-trained women it was a fortress. As overseen by the Diamond Woman, it was impregnable. No Centurion could crack its walls, built from scrap and clay and stone, and presided over by the invulnerable woman of legend. No Decanus would dare stand against the Diamond Woman, and for any such Decanus to order his legionaries to do so was unthinkable. A Decanus might as well order his men to charge the sun and the moon. As they took potshots at the cowards from Veritas’ parapets, the Daughters of Hecate laughed.

Inside the fort the atmosphere was relaxed, celebratory, and deliberately feminine. Over the course of their military expedition, Butterfly’s small army had “kidnapped” all the female slaves of Shonto and Lake Powell. They sheltered them in Veritas while they attempted to break their slave conditioning, to try and give them lives again. It was the second stage of Butterfly's redemption, her atonement for decades spent blithely ignoring the suffering women all across the wasteland experienced at the hands of the Legion.

It was difficult to convince the slaves they were freed. Some of them didn’t want freedom, having heard stories for years about the hell that was life outside Legion control (not all of which were untrue). Many had come to identify with their captors, and hated their liberators for killing the men who abused them yet they loved all the same. A select few even genuinely believed in the Legion’s cause- or at least what they perceived to be the Legion’s cause- and thought there was no better way to unite the wasteland, even as the price of unification was taken from their own flesh. Well-trained in proselytizing for Hecate, the Daughters patiently explained that there was, in fact, a better world out there, that their only options weren’t between the dangerous unknown and the miserable “safety” of Caesar’s bondage. There was a better world, and it was coming for everyone, they insisted. Hecate would stride the wasteland and strike down all the rapists and thieves and murderers, and she would rise up the women and the wise and the just. Hecate would right wrongs, restore order, etcetera, et al, et cetera.

The women were rightly skeptical. If this Hecate was all-powerful, if she had the power to remake the blighted world, why hadn’t she done so already? If Hecate truly was watching over every woman of the wasteland, then why had she not helped them? Many of the slaves had seen Caesar and his grand retinue. None of them had seen Hecate.

After a few days, it seemed all but hopeless that these women could be saved. Then, during a roundtable where the former slaves were encouraged to tell their stories, one woman stood up.

“I remember Hecate,” she said. She was of a similar age to the Daughters, but years of bondage among the Legion had aged her horribly. In order to distinguish the converted, the Harpies had proffered face paint, and this woman was the first to take up the oils, smearing a large red streak across her forehead.

“Before the Legion came, my tribe worshiped Hecate,” she said transfixed by memories that only a few days before were too painful to recall, “A woman came to us in Hecate’s name. She brought us health, and good harvest. She saved my mother’s life. She saved all of us.”

Slowly, one by one, the other freed women began to recall their life before the Legion. All of them belonged to tribes that had once believed in Hecate, before they were overthrown. A wave had been building, and with one testimony it broke. They remembered a world they’d given up on. The world that had been beaten out of them came back.

For weeks afterwards, Veritas was jubilant. There was much celebration, much drinking and dancing and singing and relaxing. Pregnant women were given pre-natal care for the first time. Although they lacked combat training, the newly-liberated ladies of the Legion cooked meals, ran supplies to their defenders on the walls, decorated, and kept the fort clean and safe. Generally, they did as they had done before they were freed, but at least they were happier and had a better quality of life. Most importantly, there was no longer anything being done **to** them.

Meanwhile, outside Veritas’ walls, the Legion’s numbers grew. A trickle at first, but Legionaries soon pooled and pooled around Shonto, until from their vantage point on Veritas’ parapets Hecate’s rogue Daughters couldn’t see the horizon for all the bodies clad in red-and-black leather. Most hadn’t even been ordered to Shonto to reclaim Veritas, but were already traveling through on their way to Fortification Hill, part of a years-long pilgrimage to once again assault Hoover Dam. Some Centurions had marched their centuriae to Shonto simply to see proof of the Diamond Woman. Soon, the forces of the Legion outnumbered the women of Fort Veritas (including the freed slaves, who had no combat experience) one-hundred to one. Yet, save for a few small assaults made by lone contubernias, no charge was forthcoming. The Legionaries appeared content to sit and wait, setting up camps and mock-fighting among themselves. They were under no pressure, while for Butterfly and her Harpies, the pressure mounted.

Though Veritas was well-supplied, even with rationing (which its besieged occupants did, but only belatedly) there was only enough food for six months. At first, Butterfly was unconcerned. After all, it wouldn’t be long before Hecate’s golden army would join them. But days became weeks, and weeks became months, and the only army to arrive was Caesar’s. Morale declined precipitously.

“All we have to do is wait,” Butterfly told everyone when they first took Fort Veritas. It was a promise she made with conviction, one that was easy to believe, the statement being popular among all religions worldwide. All the women were happy to think _if we just wait, God will sort this all out_. It was certainly a lot easier than thinking about other, more pressing matters, like how their war was to be fought, by whom, and what to do afterwards.

“All we have to do is wait.” As time went on Butterfly’s words became less a promise and more an order. As time went on, the Daughters and the freedwomen grew more and more nervous, more and more desperate to find alternatives to the plan. The freedwomen especially, having only just rekindled their faith in Hecate while also being more intimately familiar with Legion tactics, grew antsier and antsier as time dragged on longer and longer without so much as a single message from Ouroboros and Hecate. Butterfly was a skilled tactician and an unrivaled warrior, but she was not a leader, and that shortcoming became more and more apparent as her time trapped in Fort Veritas dragged on.

“We need to do _something_,” Six-Guns was the loudest dissenting voice among the Harpies who had left Ouroboros with Butterfly, proportional to her initial eagerness to start Hecate’s war for Her. “We need to fight back.”

“Yes, let’s all walk out there and die, hmmm?” rebutted Xoa, whose fragile health had previously made her the soberest Harpy in Ouroboros. In their weeks trapped in Veritas, she had kept the faith the strongest out of all the Daughters, even more than Butterfly, who had begun to have doubts about her plan in private. “I’m sure the Legion _loves_ that plan.”

“Well, maybe not some suicidal charge, but something, dammit!” Six-Guns lacked the support of her fellow Harpies, but she was the most popular among the freedwomen, who grew more afraid by the day.

“We wait.” Butterfly sneered, “If you’ve lost your faith in The Goddess, feel free to go out there and challenge the Legion one-by-one. But we will wait.”

They fought for a solid week, Six-Guns slowly persuading more Daughters towards her cause the lamer Butterfly’s excuses to delay became. Finally, the food ran out. There could be no more delaying. The rogue Daughters had to take action, or starve to death. Despite Xoa’s suggestion, eating each other was out of the question.

“No more waiting,” Six-Guns announced. Butterfly stoically agreed with her. They made plans to perform one final stand. Butterfly would march into the sea of Legionaries, powerfist at max charge, while the other Daughters provided cover from the ramparts. Once she fell, they’d let the Legion into the fort, where hopefully they’d be able to kill a centuriae or two before they were finally captured or killed. The freedwomen they’d lock in Veritas’ cellar, in the hopes that they’d be treated as captives rather than collaborators. The plan was all set to go, the Daughters about to take their positions on the wall and Butterfly about to march out to her death when Marceline spoke up.

As part of her training among the Nizh’dilt’é and later the Daughters of Hecate, Marceline’s Shadow learned how to be unseen. That meant staying out of sight, but also how to remain unnoticed despite being visible. Among the Legion, serving as a slave was the perfect camouflage, and even when she was ‘liberated’ with the other slaves at Lake Powell, she remained unseen and unnoticed, even by her peers the Daughters. For weeks in Veritas she had blended in with the other women, going along with the crowd, even as she had secretly been in contact with Ouroboros the entire time. She knew there was no aid coming, no army of Hecate’s Golden Children marching out of Utah and against the Legion.

“I’ve been ordered to kill you,” she told the rogue Daughters. In a single sentence, she went from invisible to the focus of everyone’s attention.

“I, I- uh,” Butterfly stammered. She suddenly became acutely aware that she was in the presence of another Maenad.

“Ouroboros can’t have you captured. Can’t have any of you spilling secrets to Caesar,” she ran her finger over the long knife she’d been concealing until that very moment, “Besides, Hecate says it’s undignified for any of her Daughters to be killed by any of the trash collecting outside.”

She looked Butterfly directly in the eyes, “_Especially_ a Maenad.”

The other Daughters were stunned. For a long couple minutes no-one spoke. Marceline slowly rose from the wall she’d been slouched against, and walked over to the fort’s gates, positioning herself between them and Butterfly.

“Really I should’ve killed you all weeks ago,” she confessed, “But I figured eventually you’d come to the correct conclusion on your own.”

“I guess I underestimated your will to fight,” she shrugged.

Butterfly fell back into a chair, defeated. Her plan failed. It had failed for weeks. She’d known, somewhere inside, that the war she’d dreamed of for so long wasn’t coming. That she’d failed. With Marceline’s confirmation, she could finally admit it to herself.

“What if we don’t let you kill us?” Six-Guns challenged Marceline churlishly. Marceline merely shrugged again.

“You’re welcome to try,” she answered and twirled her blade menacingly.

“Don’t bother,” Butterfly muttered. Her words were tinged with bile, “We were ready to die anyway, right? We’re already dead. What difference does it make to us who performs the killing blow?”

Six-Guns wasn’t convinced, and raised her rifle to shoot Marceline. It exploded when she pulled the trigger, blowing her arms and face off. Marceline had stoppered the barrel without anyone noticing, before she’d made her presence known. In the explosion-induced delirium that followed she executed four other Daughters she’d determined to be similarly unwilling to back down. Butterfly hadn’t been disoriented by the backfire, but she did nothing. She watched her fellow Maenad kill her followers without expression.

“So it was all for nothing, huh?” she asked Marceline, eyes welling with tears. She drew her pistol, a .357 magnum that she very rarely used. Marceline shrugged for the third time.

“Who can say?” she said.

Butterfly carefully pointed the barrel of the gun at her soft palate and fired up into her brain. She slumped over dead, blood gushing out of her mouth, nose, and eyes. The bullet didn’t break her diamond skin.

Once the rest of the rogue Daughters followed suit, Marceline went down to the cellar to inform the slaves that the Daughters were dead. The women, in their final act of freedom, secreted the bodies of their liberators within Veritas. Then they opened the door to the Legion, who massacred all of them without bothering to determine whether any of them had, in fact, collaborated with the Daughters. As far as the Legion was concerned, they were tainted goods either way. Marceline slipped away unnoticed.

Caesar didn’t order any follow-up investigation on the eleven women who killed one-and-a-half garrisons and held Fort Veritas at Shonto for nearly six months. He was distracted with the effort of assembling his army on the banks of the Colorado River, gathering together the largest fighting force the wasteland had ever seen. As far as he was concerned it was an aberration, a freak occurrence that wouldn't be repeated and irritate his plans again. He’d never know to what extent how accurate he was.

The excursion was kept secret from most of Ouroboros, but the Daughters who rebelled were given full honors and traditional burials in absentia anyway. The Legion never recovered the body of the Diamond Woman, who the slaves buried in the cellar. Years later she was exhumed by an elder Daughter named Avaela, who delivered her remains to White Sands out of guilt. Butterfly's bones were laid to rest, like the bones of her ancestors before her, joining the bones of all those who died in the southwest through time immemorial, and in joining them became the land itself. Most legionaries were unsure that she had actually been at Shonto, or even if she’d ever existed at all. The Diamond Woman faded into legend. Her war never materialized, but her rebellion finally inspired Julia to be a leader, to finally devise a plan and a future for the Daughters, lest more women died in more meaningless conflicts.


	85. Heretics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm proud of all the writing I've done on this fanfic but this chapter really is where the grapes start to turn into wine

Heretics

Julia laid in bed, intermittently dozing off, until around noon when she rolled off her comforter, slathered a thick layer of paint on her face and tossed on an old yucca-fiber dress that had once belonged to Dark Mother. She slipped out of her room at the top of the temple and made her way out into Ouroboros' courtyard, the stones of which were patterned in the shape of the compound's namesake. No one gave her a second glance. For the past year she'd been so visible that when she stripped off all her bangles and silks she was unrecognizable. She savored the anonymity.

Ouroboros was busy around noon. Sibyls all took their lunch breaks, Harpies shuddered awake to walk off their hangovers, and Hecate's Golden Children were given an hour of unscheduled time to relax. In the gardens ancient Mr. Handys thrummed and buzzed as they went about their work tending the plants. The Hounds who worked the afternoon shift rotated in and the Hounds who worked the morning shift rotated out, and with the Goddess's “blessing” couples would pair up and make their way to the breeding halls of the temple. Some of the older Golden Children had petitioned for permission to participate in the mating rituals, and while Hecate had tactfully declined to make a pronouncement either way, once she was gone Julia lifted the de-facto ban and allowed the kids to fuck each other. Within a year they were already well on their way to producing the next generation of Golden Children.

Julia couldn't have children. That hadn't always been the case. When she was a teenager she'd gotten pregnant a few times. She never gave birth, mostly on purpose, occasionally on accident. As the older women of the Twisted Hairs liked to tell her, her hips were awfully narrow for bearing children. It became a moot point, though, after her elective surgery to become a Maenad, during which she also elected to have a hysterectomy. When she found out Hecate was furious, angrier at Julia than she'd ever been in their entire relationship. As angry as she'd ever be until their final fight.

Although Julia figured she'd be upset, she was still surprised at just how upset she was. Julia was heir to the Twisted Hairs, to the Twisted Hair's most powerful family, the granddaughter of a man that Hecate loved so blindly she'd named an entire order of her church's hierarchy after him. On top of that, the goddess had personally complimented Julia on her genes, claiming they were “above and beyond” the average tribal, or even the average pre-war American (as determined by Diana’s spotty records). Julia knew all this, yet the goddess's wrath still caught her off guard. It even seemed to catch Hecate off guard, too. After Julia returned from her first Maenad mission, the goddess sheepishly apologized, although she made it clear she was still greatly disappointed in her.

In the decade and change since, Julia often regretted her choice. Birthing children was one of if not the central tenant of Hecate’s religion, which was simultaneously why Julia decided against ever doing it and why it was so hard to have complete confidence in her decision more than a decade later. Giving birth in Ouroboros was something Daughters took a lot of pride in. If a Daughter hadn’t contributed to Hecate’s child army by the time they were 35 (like Athena), they were looked down upon, unofficially a second class citizen. Officially, the Daughters only had three castes, the Maenads, the Sibyls, and the Harpies, but there was a secret fourth caste, the Women Who Hadn’t Given Birth. It was worst among the Harpies, who might be outright shunned and treated like garbage; Maenads had it best, their transgression politely forgotten in public (but still gossiped about in private); and either-or for Sibyls, depending on their importance in the temple’s administration. Thankfully, for the High Priestess of Hecate, either the faithful had no idea she hadn’t and wouldn’t ever contribute a Golden Child of her own, or it was irrelevant, since as Hecate’s second in command all Golden Children were her children.

Still, it is difficult to contravene one’s culture and feel unselfconscious about it, especially when one is supposedly that culture’s greatest champion, regardless of personal or moral objections. And Julia’s decision had been made mostly for moral reasons. Contrary to doctrine, children weren’t sacred and revered in Hecate’s church. In actual practice, they were tools. A resource and nothing more. Hecate made children into weapons, she exploited and used them. Julia was too soft-hearted to bring a life into existence so that it could be twisted into a pawn in Hecate’s game. If other women were willing to let their children be soldiers, then so be it. The hypocrisy of letting others do what she could not was leavened by the knowledge that it was their choice, a choice all the Daughters seemed unnervingly comfortable with, even though she knew their complacency was a result of conditioning. As for the genetic specimens that had been snatched in their swaddling clothes from mothers across the four corners, well, Julia simply didn’t think about that. It was easy when they were young, and any war they were to fight in was more than ten years away.

But Hecate’s war against the Legion was approaching. The day when Ouroboros’s children would march out into the badlands to kill and be killed got closer and closer. Caesar’s health declined more every day, and Hecate’s official plan was to strike the very hour he finally succumbed to his brain tumor. Incredibly, even that wasn’t soon enough for some of her Daughters.

Julia knew about Butterfly's mutiny before anyone else in Ouroboros. Marceline had served as her second in command before Hecate named her High Priestess, and in deference to their personal and professional relationship Marceline had reported the sacking of Lake Powell to Julia first. In point of fact, Marceline had no idea what was happening, and for a long time in times of crisis had come to rely on Julia for guidance and answers. When Julia got the word that the Legion forces at Lake Powell had been overwhelmed and defeated by eleven Daughters claiming holy war, Julia defaulted to her patented strategy when things were out of control; pretend everything was alright and get more information. It was a plan that satisfied Marceline.

Step one was investigating the armory, which was unsurprisingly informative. Butterfly's little gang had stolen everything they could carry, which meant they weren't carrying anything more than guns. That was her second mistake. Her first was assuming she had enough leverage over Ouroboros's command to create a panic. That there was a Goddess who would pay her ransom and submit to her will.

Julia got the names and ranks of every one of Butterfly’s terrorists from Marceline. She looked up their information in Ouroboros’ computer. It was easy to determine that aside from Butterfly they weren't soldiers, that they didn't have discipline and they were ill-suited to fight an actual war. Feeling informed enough she developed a plan. Then, finally, she told the Council of Priestesses what was happening.

“In defiance of the will of the Goddess Hecate, a small but well-armed troupe of Harpies led by a single Maenad has declared war against Caesar’s Legion,” she explained to the assembled Priestesses. “They claim they do so in Hecate’s name, yet failed to acquire permission from the Goddess and are therefore traitors to the Daughters of Hecate, Ouroboros, and the Goddess Herself.”

“Oh, fuck,” Olaya was the first to speak. Every Priestess’s mouth was agape. Never before had a Daughter acted against the temple. Treason was unthinkable. Not when every Daughter knew well the horrors visited upon tribes that had rejected Hecate and her message. The name Let-It-Bleed flitted through every mind in the control room.

“Fortunately, our benevolent and wise Goddess has decided what we are to do about these heretics,” Julia couldn’t help but smirk a little, “Nothing.”

The Priestesses gasped.

“Maenad faithful to Hecate have already infiltrated the heretics, and on Her order they will be dispatched promptly,” Julia said, “No further action is necessary.”

The Priestesses had questions of course. Most pressing was what chance was there that The Daughters of Hecate could be exposed to the Legion. If these women were captured would they confess that there was a secret organization working to undermine Caesar’s authority? Would their excursion into Legion territory warn Caesar against their future plans to strike? To those questions, Julia didn’t have a definitive answer. There was no way to tell if these defectors hadn’t just cost the Daughters their war. That was their one bit of leverage. Thanks to their betrayal, it might be now or never for the Daughters. Even if they weren’t willing to give up information to the Legion, there was no guarantee that some clever Centurion wouldn’t piece together enough data from their actions and apparel. After all, Scipio Venator had much less evidence when he’d figured out enough to mount his attack. Most of the knowledge he’d put together about a secret nation of women had been speculative. Now a small contingent of that nation had marched straight up to the Legion’s door and knocked.

After having weighed the options, though, Julia hadn’t found a better course of action, and when she presented them with all the facts, neither could the other Priestesses. If they dealt with the problem too lightly, the rogue Daughters might be captured and interrogated, or, worst of all, they might make a formal declaration of war against the Legion, explicitly introducing Caesar to his unseen foe in the misguided belief that Ouroboros was already marching to their aid. If the council's response was too heavy-handed against the heretics, if they publicly and openly concluded their heresy, it would almost certainly expose the church and risk not just the war but everything and everyone they'd kept secret from the Legion.

“These fucking idiots have, in one single stroke, destroyed years of delicate planning and _ruined_ the Goddess's vision!” Priestess Theresa was an older woman with elaborate facial tattoos not unlike a Maori. She was the oldest Sibyl among Hecate's council and was quick to anger.

“Hecate's vision has been refined and developed over the past eighteen years, largely by the women sitting in this very room. If it's so fragile it can be undone by eleven idiots and forty-two guns, then it was never a good plan to begin with,” Sibyl Gita was more level-headed, if not any less mean.

“We need to maintain perspective on this. What is really at stake if the Legion realizes we're a threat because of these fuckwits? We go to war, just earlier than we planned. It's not as though we're completely fucked here. Just because this isn't the ideal time doesn't mean we can't mount an offensive. We'll go to war, like they want, and they'll die, like we want. Everyone gets what they want,” Olaya said bleakly.

“... Just not the way they want it,” Yvana finished.

In the end all of their handwringing was completely unnecessary, naturally. The threat they posed to Caesar’s Legion would never be taken seriously. In the months before Butterfly finally killed herself, all the intel they gathered from the Legion proved it, time and time again. Almost every Centurion either completely ignored the occupation of Fort Veritas, or they considered it an amusing diversion. They only ever remarked on Shonto in an offhand way during their preparations to march on the Dam. The single dissenting opinion, the sole Centurion who actually considered the women a possible threat, was coincidentally killed in a random attack on his Centuria by a group of super mutants. In fact, just before he died, Centurion Barbatos was upbraided by the new Legate for not focusing enough on the war plan, for allowing himself to be distracted by the “ridiculous spectacle of the Diamond Woman”. Butterfly wasn’t a harbinger of a war to come. She was a carnival sideshow.

The priestesses considered the matter solved. Just like Caesar, they considered it an aberration, a brief hiccup in their designs. Butterfly’s rebellion was, officially, a minor inconvenience to all parties involved. A week after she killed herself, the only person who still thought about her was Julia. In what was apparently an attempt to compensate for the rest of the world’s apathy, Butterfly’s effort to jumpstart a war was the only thing Julia thought about. For a month.


	86. Mothers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Julia makes a heroic decision.

Mothers

Ouroboros blossomed with Daughters of all stripes everyday around noon, but it was never meant to. The compound (not city) was never meant to house so many women and men (especially not men). Their resources were tight, had been tight for years. New greenhouses and barracks had been built, and the Mr. Handys worked 24/7, but the temple and the surrounding buildings were supposed to be temporary. Hecate’s end goal was always the dissolution of Ouroboros, as her Golden Children spread across the wasteland and reinstated the tribes. It was only ever meant to be a brief interruption in the perfect continuity of tribal living in the four corners region of the former United States. Once the “natural order” had been restored, Hecate had even planned to renounce her Godhood, and disappear back into the wasteland, as ignored and irrelevant to the tribes as she’d once been to the Twisted Hairs.

At least, that was what she claimed. Julia never thought much of that plan. As much as she respected and admired the goddess, her high-minded ideals often overlooked everything Julia understood about human nature. Hecate’s vision extended hundreds of miles, into hearts and minds, and into the future, but it very rarely included what was right in front of her. There was no way any of her Daughters would ever consent to returning to the way things were before. Even if Hecate wanted to (which Julia personally found dubious) her worshipers wouldn’t let her just disappear back into the wasteland. No-one was going to have a big happy smile while they tore the temple down brick-by-brick on their way back to subsistence living in xenophobic, pre-industrial tribal communities. Daughters already had the community they wanted. That was clear every day in Ouroboros at noon.

Everyone smiled at Julia as she passed, and not because she was the High Priestess (Julia was so bad about applying her facepaint that any amount would have disguised her from the average Daughter, much less the thick coat she'd slathered on) but because they were happy. Even as rationing continued and Ouroboros got smaller they were happy. The harried Sibyls, the hungover Harpies, and the Golden Children all smiled and laughed and flirted and played. That was life in Ouroboros.

A group of Hounds and Harpies liked to hunt in the morning. Sometimes they'd return empty handed, but today they returned to cheers with a colossal Colorado river toad on a spit. It was roughly the size of two adults, and as she carried it in one of the Harpies boasted that it almost swallowed her whole! A group of children danced around the hunting party and burst into laughter at the story.

While the frog cooked, the hunters dispersed into the square. Daughters milled about the courtyard, gossiping and philosophizing and just generally enjoying themselves in a lackadaisical way. More than a few were outside simply to read in the sun. A handful of Daughters who worked in the greenhouse carefully distributed fresh fruit with peanut butter (peanuts being in good supply and not subject to rationing, although honey was a bit scarcer). Worshipers of all stripes worked on the mural that graced the wall of the armory. On the left, a world engulfed in flames and howling with pain, on the right of the mural the world was a green garden teeming with all sorts of beautiful and delicate animals that didn't exist anymore. In the center of the mural sat the Goddess herself, Hecate. She held both death and life in her hands. Her left hand, death, was clenched and furious. Her right, life, was an open palm, and in it a magnificent bird with rainbow-colored plumage perched. Nearly every Daughter contributed to the mural. Even Julia had self-consciously added a few small ghouls to the world in flames. Other Daughters had expanded her three monsters into an entire twisted, shrieking army; one that, not coincidentally, resembled a Legion cohort, wielding blocky scrap swords and red standards. Julia was too scared to add anything to the right side of the painting. She wasn't confident she could create something beautiful.

A Daughter offered her a small, tart apple smeared with peanut butter and Julia gratefully accepted it. The smell of cooking frog made her stomach growl. In large group meals the Daughters were allowed to spice more liberally, which always guaranteed a good turnout. Unlike the tribal feasts of the Twisted Hairs, Julia was a regular fixture. These meals were her primary source of food, except when she ate with Atia. When left to her own devices, Julia's meals were mostly liquid, and their slim nutritional value derived solely from whatever fruit Avata had decided to mix into her paint thinner.

Four young children rushed past, laughing and giggling. Julia overheard a Daughter ask where the High Priestess was and decided to follow the kids, three girls and a boy. She knew who they were but not their names. One of the girls, at eight the oldest, was a bit of a bully, and the boy's bachelor status was likely to be confirmed any day. All four of them were birthed in Ouroboros to Hecate's most devout. Their mothers, Julia noted, might have even been in the square, waiting to eat. Not that they would ever recognize each other. They led her to a dirt field where nearly one hundred other young children were playing. The fad among the Golden Children was to draw in the dirt, with their fingers or with sticks. All of them worked together to draw elaborate patterns, dozens of them interlocking and spanning twenty, thirty square feet, huge mandalas that could only be appreciated from above. The kids would remotely command an eyebot up into the sky, have it take a picture, then wipe the ground clean and draw something else. The drawings were perfect for low-resolution images, and all the computers across Ouroboros used the pictures as save screens. For whatever reason whenever she saw the kids make their art, Julia felt pangs of nostalgia.

Among the Golden Children was a group that Julia was close with. There were five of them. None of them were popular with the other children, and the only reason they grouped together was because of Julia's influence. There was Tysha, who at the age of thirteen still wet her bed; Norris, who had a stutter; Vansar who was mildly autistic; Nualla, who had a hormone imbalance; and Deva, who was ostracized simply because she was odd-looking. They were the ones who started the mandala fad- they started drawing them in empty dirt fields because no other kids would play with them. They loved Julia and she loved them. She had to catch herself before she joined in and accidentally let slip her disguise.

Tysha was in charge, of course. Save the other outcasts nobody liked her, but nobody questioned her authority, either. Among the domesticated and docile Golden Children she was one of few to possess a drive to lead, who refused to be complacent. Nor did anyone dispute Norris when he angrily and sputteringly corrected someone on their drawing, since he was the geometry king. Julia chuckled to herself as the boy, a few years older and twice Norris' size, supplicated himself and hastily undid his mistake, before Norris could even finish berating him. Even Deva, who remained timid and withdrawn, was smiling and laughing and enjoying herself. The kids all came together, they flitted apart, they played with that special anarchy of innocence. Julia couldn't help but smile as she watched, and unthinkingly rested her hand on her abdomen. Before she knew it she was calculating, in the event of war, how many of these children would die.

She stared at each of their faces as she personally tallied their chance of survival. It wasn't a matter of skill or strength. The cold fact was that people died in wars, regardless of who they were. For instance, despite excelling in combat training, the older boy who Norris chided would almost certainly die. Since he was older it meant he'd be firing the opening volley. It was safe to assume every child who fought in the beginning of the war would die. That was the way of war. Even if every soldier enjoyed a kill ratio as lopsided as three-hundred, four-hundred to one, they'd still die with Caesar's forces not even a third depleted, and those forces that yet remained would be the veterans and Centurions and the most dangerous. The first wave of Hecate's Golden Children were going to exhaust themselves slaughtering unskilled recruits; the second wave would die fighting battle-hardened soldiers.

Not that they wouldn't win. Three-hundred to one wasn't a wholly unreasonable goal for Hecate's Golden Children. They had the training, they had the weapons and the resources, and most importantly they were striking when Legion command was at its most disorganized (provided there were no more Butterflies). Overcoming Caesar's numbers would be a problem, certainly, but they planned for that. It didn't matter, though. In war, people died. They died together, they died alone, they died of illness, they died on accident, they died after weeks and months of agonizing torture. These people, these _children_ she was watching play in the dirt behind Ouroboros were going to die. The children of mothers all across the wasteland were going to die, on both sides, if Hecate and Butterfly got their way. For what were the Legionaries, if not children too? Malformed and cruel children, to be sure, but children all the same.

Norris would almost certainly be killed in the war. Tysha, perhaps not, but Nualla definitely. Deva would likely survive. Vansar would be lucky to be killed, he was the top soldier of his age bracket and his orders would be to engage in unconventional warfare deep behind enemy lines. The most skilled would see the most, have the most opportunities to meet their untimely end. Those that did return would never be the same. Julia had waged war for more than fifteen years. The girl she'd been at the start was a stranger now, and even then, she'd never been allowed the innocence these children were afforded.

That was the cruelest piece of Hecate's plan. As much as she loathed the docility of the Golden Children, Julia also believed it was precious and novel in the wasteland. These kids had nothing to hate and fear. For them, the world wasn't a bad place. Hecate made sure they grew up in a loving environment where their physical and emotional needs were provided for. No children had grown up with so much in a long time, even before the bombs fell. To raise these children in such a loving environment just to make them fight in a war was nothing but a sick fucking joke.

Sure, they were taught to fight, but there was a difference between fighting and war. For them, the war was about bringing enlightenment and peace to the rest of the wasteland. That was a cruel trick, though. When war came, they wouldn't be fighting for the rights of the oppressed. They wouldn't be fighting for a better world. They were fighting for Hecate and Butterfly and the grudges of all the other bitter old bitches across the wasteland. They'd be fighting on behalf of the angry dead. War is spiritual rot, it rots the heart and soul of everyone it touches. Julia didn't want to think what would happen to these kids, after all the bloodshed and torment and killing and watching their friends die, after war had burned away so much, when they realized the lie. It made her sad.

Julia wanted better for these kids. She wanted a better future for everyone in Ouroboros. War was the way of the old world. Tribalism was Hecate and Harpy's way. As the Golden Children finished their play and returned to their schooling, Julia made her decision. The Daughters might want war, but no mother ever did. There would be no war. There would be no war.


	87. The 47th Tribe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1 out of 100 actually seems a little generous

The 47th Tribe   
About one in every one-hundred men who served Caesar actually understood what he was trying to do. They saw past the pageantry and publicity and fabrications and outright lies to the philosophy behind the movement, behind the man. Some knew what autocracy was, some didn't have the words for it, but of that select group of men who fundamentally understood Caesar's ultimate goal (not of a nation, necessarily, but rather of a vast machine that used human lives as its components with Caesar at the controls, a machine made to make itself indefinitely, for the supposed benefit of its parts) few disagreed. Some only went along to get along, lacking any better options, and a select few even attempted to subvert Caesar's authority, but they were a minority among a minority, and most legionaries who actually understood what they were serving for actually believed in the dream. With clear minds and open hearts they truly, honestly believed that what they were doing was for the best. Some were Centurions, some were Decani.   
Seneca Superstes was only a Legionary, albeit a veteran Legionary. He'd even served at the Battle of Hoover Dam. In the back. His centuria was supposed to occupy the Dam as the army pressed westward, but they were still nearly a mile away before the invasion was repelled. They did provide cover to retreating Legionaries, and Seneca's Decanus was killed by an NCR sniper, but that was the most action they saw. Seneca never saw the enemy and he never saw the Dam.  
Still, like many of the other men who survived the Battle of Hoover Dam he was given the surname Superstes, survivor. As far as any man in the Legion was concerned everyone who served at the Dam had defied death, regardless of their actual role in the battle. For a short time after Joshua Graham was punished, no-one knew whether or not if, in a fit of pique, Caesar would condemn the Legate's army to the same fate. For two days, regardless of whether they'd stood on the west bank or the east bank of the Colorado, every one of those men faced death. Any man with the name Superstes was given respect.  
Naturally, Caesar wasn't going to follow up his Legion's first real defeat by destroying even more of his army. Hoover Dam was a devastating blow, and not that Caesar would ever admit it to anyone but his control over the wasteland was quite tenuous. His command was absolute, and his soldiers loyal and numerous, but they were still stretched thin. That was the problem Caesar grappled with daily, the more power he had the more difficult it was to keep it, and more disastrous to lose it. Even Kingman, when he crucified only a quarter cohort and sacrificed the other quarter in battle was at the time a big gamble, early in his career as a living god as it was. He knew he had to do it, to make sure Legionaries then and for decades to come would know the cost of disobedience, but conquering the world- conquering human nature- meant taking risks. But no, he wasn't about to throw a dozen cohorts into Wi kaʼi la out of anger and embarrassment.  
Seneca Superstes knew that and he wasn't afraid. He had known fear, once. True fear, fear in its platonic ideal. A long, dread terror that creeps its long tendrils into the marrow of your bones. Seneca slept with it each night and it greeted him each morning. The fear was constant, baked into his body, his essence, so strong it felt like pain. In even his earliest memories it was there, a physical thing lurking in the periphery of his vision. He called it the black fog. Caesar saved him from it.  
The 47th tribe of Caesar's Legion was known only as the 47th tribe because every man in the Legion knew its name, but none ever spoke it. Everyone in the southwest wasteland knew the 47th tribe. Everyone in the southwest wasteland was afraid of the 47th tribe.  
To many they were a myth. A bedtime boogeyman story to tell disobedient children. Tales of men and women with eyeless faces or faceless eyes, shiny black oily skin, fingers that ended in long, wicked claws, who hissed and clicked like hideous bugs. They appeared and disappeared at will, sometimes dragging people off with them. No one knew where they lived, and no one who they took ever came back. There were rumors that they practiced human sacrifice, that they cut out hearts and brains and ate them for power, or used them in perverse arcane rituals. They were ghouls, they were ghosts, they were some as-yet-unnamed form of mutation, something sinister and no longer human. The 47th tribe haunted the wasteland.  
But to Seneca they were not a myth. The 47th tribe was his tribe. Once, a long time ago, the tribe started in the Wattz Innovation Lab with physicists. Brilliant minds who contributed to some of the 21st Century's greatest advances. They revolutionized transportation, power, warfare, and robotics with their discoveries. They developed the propulsion system for the Mr. Handy line of robots. The underground laboratory that became their post-war home was where the first fission battery was built. The progenitors of Seneca's tribe built it.  
The darkness must have always been there, Seneca knew. Even when the men had doctorate degrees. The patrimonial confidence that they had the tools and the know-how to fix humanity because they were good at pataphysics and rocketry, was something deep inside, a rot that started at the root of the 47th tribe. Seneca didn't know when the surgeries started, or the games, or when they first started using electrodes, but it couldn't have been too far removed from the day the bombs fell. When it was just the physicists and the support staff of the WIL huddling underground in the labs. The amateur surgery must have been particularly awful back then. It was practically butchery in Seneca's time, and that was after a century of experimentation, of trying to find which parts to cut and which parts to staple to make people “perfect”.  
During his time with the 47th tribe Seneca had things done to him, but it was when he did things to others that he truly hated his tribesfolk. Dosing kidnapped tribal after kidnapped tribal with radiation over and over again, even though he did it so much he knew what was going to happen and it was done so much the other “technicians” knew what was going to happen and the last generation of “technicians” knew what would happen. Either the victim would die immediately of radiation, or the victim would die slowly and painfully of the tumors that developed (and just before they succumbed to their tumors Seneca would be required to surgically remove some of their growths to implant into other victims who would then be killed by the tumors [and sometimes the surgery]). Injecting the same chemicals into different parts of victims’ bodies over and over again, dosing them with amphetamines or heroin or mercury or the blood of other victims who had somehow survived even worse torture, not to see what would happen but to see if something different happened, this time. The “experiments” that the 47th tribe practiced became so abstract and rote that, after a century, they transformed from crude scientific inquiry into dark occult ritual.  
There were pieces of Seneca missing. That was sacred to the 47th tribe. How much they could take away from a person and that person could still live. On his left hand Seneca's ring and little finger were removed at the knuckle. One of his kidneys and half of his liver were gone. His liver had been cooked, and he'd been forced to eat a small piece of it, but his kidney was stored in a jar of formaldehyde. The 47th tribe had an entire room dedicated to organs they'd removed, shelves and shelves of them. Some labeled, most not. There were all kinds in that room. Brains, kidneys, lungs, appendixes, pancreas, esophagus, stomach, intestines all suspended in sickly green fluid that glowed faintly in the dark. There were jars with plenty of sex organs, as well. One of Seneca's first responsibilities, while still a child himself, was to castrate young boys the tribe had snatched. His father taught him how to do it, with the implicit understanding that if he didn't then it'd be done to him. Occasionally tribals miles away from home wandered lobotomized, when questioned unsure of where they'd been and missing parts of their bodies. Although these disappearances were never directly tied to the 47th tribe, during the early years of the Legion it was part of their mission to exterminate the most mutilated and insensate victims of these experiments, those that had been kept alive no matter how gone they were. This cleansing was considered a kindness.   
It wasn't just surgery, though. There was also the conditioning, the electroshock, the mind games, and the drugging. Seneca still, years afterwards, would sometimes fly into an uncontrollable rage, like he was possessed, because of misfires in his brain. Programming from the 47th tribe that would still sometimes go off, no matter how he tried to escape it. The first time he did it they whipped him for insubordination, but it happened enough that his brothers-in-arms figured out how to help him during his fits.  
When he was a teenager, Seneca heard about Caesar's Legion. The Legion posed a threat to the 47th tribe not just physically but philosophically. For decades they had the only true vision for humanity and the future in the wasteland, and that left their ideas unchallenged. Now here was Caesar, with a competing view on how to fix humanity, plus the manpower and equipment to enforce it. Through torture and conditioning and rape the 47th tribe had managed to keep their population stable, but they'd never grown, and the pre-war tech they had maintained for so long was threadbare. Much of the sublevels of the Wattz Innovation Lab that had survived the bombing were in disrepair, many didn't even have lights. They still had a good supply of stealthboys and laserguns, but other than that the only edge they had on Caesar was their fanatical devotion to their monstrous philosophy.  
It was the shallowness of that doctrine that did them in. From the moment Seneca realized the leaders of his tribe were scared of Caesar's Legion Seneca was the Legion's man. He couldn't tell whether he'd internalized his tribe's ideology or whether he'd simply seen from them the worst, most unrestrained impulses of humanity, but he believed in Caesar's doctrine of discipline and authority. In the west Caesar's Legion was considered savage and cruel but in the lands Caesar conquered the Legion was civilization, was civil. Compared to the 47th tribe, Caesar's Legion was enlightenment.  
So as soon as he possibly could Seneca left The Will and sought out Caesar's Legion. He sold out his tribe, utterly and entirely, their methods, their routes, The Will and how to access it, everything. He gave Caesar the names of each and every member, occasionally editorializing what he'd like done to them. His betrayal was a windfall for the Legion. Not only did he serve one of their most dangerous enemies to them on a silver platter, the elimination (or even better, integration) of wasteland boogeymen by Caesar was a marvelous public relations boon that guaranteed that at least a half-dozen tribes would unite under Caesar's banner without hesitation. And Seneca's intelligence made it so easy to conquer the 47th tribe that Caesar was able to integrate some of them into the Legion. There were a few who Seneca knew would be happy to renounce the tribe, but he was honestly surprised at just how many of his people were eager to escape. There were some who, though technically able to function as human beings, were so mentally destroyed by the horrors visited upon them that they were kept as slaves, and the rest were slaughtered, publicly, except the few psychopaths who still tried to fight back despite being completely outmaneuvered, either out of sheer fanaticism or simply because what had been done to them gave them no other option. When the Legion raided The Will it was a house of horrors, and opening any door held the chance of provoking attack by a maniac whose hands were replaced with knives. After the Legion cleaned out The Will, they flooded it and sealed off all entrances with stone and mortar. Some said they sealed something inside, something sinister and incomprehensible that the 47th tribe had built, or perhaps tapped into, but that was only a rumor.  
Although essential to the conquest of the 47th tribe, Seneca was only a teenager and was thus admitted to the Legion as a recruit. He didn't care. He was happy with his new name and his new title. Besides, after seeing the way power and authority corrupted the people in his old tribe he was wary of being in charge. As far as he could tell, power meant doing incomprehensibly horrible things, and now that he was free of his old tribe, he was done with incomprehensible horrors, although comprehensible horrors he was willing to accept as the cost of progress. He served as a simple Legionary for a decade and change, never seeking promotion and never receiving it. Even without a title he was given respect, though, even by Legionaries who didn't understand the tribal affiliation the black electrical tape wrapped around his forearms signified. He was a veteran, a man of honor, and regardless of his rank he deserved deference.  
The Cohort Seneca served in was divided by Caesar, with two thirds sent to amass on the eastern Colorado and Seneca's third stationed on the edge of Caesar's New Mexico holdings, in a town called Yap. Seneca's Centuriae was the most experienced and respected of his cohort, while the other Centuriae stationed with them was the least. His Centurion, Otho, and most of Otho's men had served for almost twenty years. In Yap Otho was de-facto in charge, despite technically being co-commander with Centurion Lathos, who had only been a Centurion for three years. The idea was that even though Yap only had one-third of a Cohort Otho and his men, backed up by a recruit Centuriae, were skilled enough to maintain order and control. Most importantly, Otho was considered to be loyal and intelligent enough to be left to his own command, without much input from Caesar or his new Legate.  
Surprisingly, though, after six months of silence in Yap reinforcements arrived. With no warning nearly an entire Centuriae emerged out of the wasteland, claiming they'd been sent by Caesar to serve Otho and Lathos. More surprisingly was the company they brought with them.  
In Seneca's tribe, the 47th tribe, the notion of family was considered outdated. A relic of a worse time, one more thing that the brilliant minds of The Will had to cleanse from humanity in their effort to improve it. He knew who his father was, or at least a man who said he was Seneca's father, but that man had been killed by the Legion for his dark magics. Seneca knew that he had a mother, obviously, but he never met the woman and by the time he betrayed his tribe she was long dead. He might have had siblings, dozens of siblings for all he knew, but he wasn't raised alongside them. When he betrayed his tribe and saw his father crucified, Seneca- save for some small tokens to remind him of the horrors- abandoned his past and his people, and he was happy to do it. Until they arrived in Yap, Seneca had honestly never considered how many of his peers had families they still cared a great deal for.  
Rounding out the reinforcements' Centuriae were women, nearly two dozen of them. Some had already peeled off before the reinforcements arrived in Yap, to join their families in the Contubernias providing point, but all of them were in some way related to nearly every Legion officer in town. For Lathos it was his mother, a long-necked woman with a beehive hairdo. For Othos, it was his daughters, three young women who had been babies when Othos' tribe was conquered and they disappeared with their mother. Seneca's own Decanus, Laughing Wind, was reunited with his younger sister. Seneca watched in awe as these men were reduced to tears as they embraced family they hadn't seen in decades. The night their families returned, the men of Seneca's Cohort even threw a party.  
Seneca didn't participate. He volunteered- along with the reinforcements- to guard the periphery. He wanted the opportunity to get a better read on these reinforcements, these Legionaries he'd never seen before. There was something off about them, something he couldn't put his finger on. Physically they were all excellent specimens, broad shouldered and rippling with muscle, plus some of the tallest men he'd ever seen. They were all young, though, the oldest perhaps twenty and the youngest didn't look a day over fourteen. Each and every one of them lacked discipline, at least the discipline befitting a Legionary. They lounged on duty, slouched even, and they talked and laughed amongst themselves. When they noticed him staring they returned to attention, but otherwise mostly slacked off. Most egregiously, when Seneca tried to get one of the reinforcements to scout a suspicious noise, the young man actually scoffed, although he quickly regained his composure and did indeed scout the sound. He never apologized to Seneca, though.  
Upon his return to Yap the next morning, Seneca had a lot to say about these reinforcements and their quality, but in Yap things had changed. The women that had arrived with the new Legionaries claimed that they, too, had been sent by Caesar. They'd come with a message, they said. Caesar's time is coming. The Empire of Mars is upon us. Ave Caesar. Gloria Romae. Omnes Ave novi Imperii. Mars venit. Apollo venturus est.


	88. The Worst Parties in the World

The Worst Parties in the World

Of every one-hundred men in the Legion, ninety-nine served Caesar because he seemed real smart. Not a-one of them understood what the fuck he was talking about, what the hell he meant by “Hegelian dialectics,” or cynicism, or “the perfection of society through austerity and meritocracy,” but damn did all those ideas sound smart, and he spoke real good and he used a lot of big words and he never, ever lost his train of thought while in the middle of a sentence. To a lot of His army He was the smartest man they ever met. And all those smarts bore out. He won battles and he conquered tribes and thus the vast majority of his men were more than happy to do whatever he told them, whenever he told them, even if, really, none of it made all that much sense to them.

Proudly among those men stood Centurion Otho- he who tore men in two. He split skulls and sang as he slaughtered. In the wasteland he was known chiefly for gleefully bringing back the Judas Cradle and the Spanish Donkey. When Caesar introduced smog-belching war chariots into his army Otho used them not for battle, but to pull profligates apart. Sometimes he’d pull them apart crosswise, their entrails trailing behind them as they were dragged screaming along the dirt. Sometimes he pulled them apart lengthwise, their guts spilling out onto the ground beneath them as their bellies split open, wailing and sobbing as their families helplessly watched.

“Hey, Pat, watch- watch this throw,” he drunkenly implored Centurion Patroclus, drink clutched in one sweaty, meaty hand and a bright yellow lawn dart in the other. With a careless toss, the dart soared up and over and missed its mark by about three inches, sinking harmlessly into the carpet of neon green Astroturf.

“Better shot next time, Otto,” Patroclus jeered, jabbing at Otho with his own beverage (mutfruit wine, concealed within an old flat-top steel beercan without a label). Around them tiki torches sputtered in the cool night breeze. Out in the shadows past the Astroturf and the tiki torches and the white picket fence the wasteland was crawling with some of the Legion's best. They spread a wide net with their perimeter, pistols at their sides and wary eyes scanning the horizon. But guarding the Bull Pen was an easy job. They were deep within Legion territory, when the Legion was stronger than ever, and even as they kept alert the men were at ease. Some even squatted in the dirt or leaned on rocks, and chatted idly.

“That's two points for me. Looks like I'm winning,” taunted Patroclus with wine-stained teeth after his blue dart found its mark. On the porch a few other guests languorously watched the contest while the band softly played an auana hula. The sound and smell of cooking meat wafted over the luau as Otho polished off his “soda” (juice from what passed for sweet fruit of the wasteland). The Centurion, who once killed a baby in front of its mother by slowly pushing in its fontanelle, happily belched, clapped his hands and vigorously rubbed them together. He licked his lips, plucked a fresh lawn dart from a basket, and tossed.

As a young speculatore Otho fell while climbing and hurt his back. It didn't bother him and he thought nothing of it until he turned thirty-three and wrenched it whipping a disobedient recruit. Suddenly his back was in constant pain, a pain worse than any other in his life. Worse than being stabbed, worse than being shot, worse than being passed up for promotion, made fun of, or losing his tribe; worse than losing his family. All else he could push down and ignore, but not the wracking, miserable pain that his back would now cause him for the rest of his life. Being the loyal legionary he was he'd never partake in modern medicine to sooth his tortured body. Instead, he resorted to an old tribal remedy he demanded from a slave. She made him a tincture that was essentially rubbing alcohol and made children and the infirm dizzy with just its smell. The tonic didn't really relieve his back pain but it worked better than nothing so he drank it every day when he woke up, when he ate, and when he went to bed. For the next ten years Otho experimented with all manner of primitive painkillers until an enterprising caravaneer started supplying him with a “traditional Blackfoot curative,” which was really just ground up oxycodone pills. Middle-aged, arthritic, and bald, the centurion hid his dilated pupils from the harsh glare of the sun with a big pair of cheap plastic pre-war Oakleys wrapped tight around his bulbous, fleshy head. A decade plus of drinking paint thinner for breakfast left him with a bloated nose riddled with burst blood vessels. He was a hard man, and he once fought like there was no tomorrow, but a lifetime of fighting like there was no tomorrow had made mashed potatoes of his face and left him a little punch-drunk, on top of his opioids and his herbal remedies. He swayed when he walked and he looked like a shaved gorilla.

Otho commanded a Centuriae on the farthest east of Caesar's domain, the very edge of Yootó Hahoodzo, almost north Texas. Rumors abound that Texas was rife with super mutants. Traveling Texans told tales of a dread army of The Master's super mutants, valiantly still fighting his war against humanity, now at the behest of his former lieutenant. Sometimes speculatores claimed to have seen giant green men on their patrols. Otho never saw any mutants, super or otherwise. He kept vigilant watch, though.

Most of his time on the fringe of Caesar's territory was spent running drills, enforcing discipline, mediating disputes, and occasionally cutting people in half. Like the good old days. He was the senior officer and therefore the most powerful man for miles and miles around. As such it was his responsibility to report back to Legion Command all the super mutants he was not seeing. Most of his time not spent on the fringe was spent in or around Flagstaff.

“One point!” Otho tossed up his arms in triumph to a smattering of polite applause on the deck. A peal of unrelated laughter erupted from the immaculate midcentury modern mansion behind them. Otho bowed anyway. The light of the torches danced in his sunglasses. Centurion Patroclus didn't notice as he stumbled his way up to the tiki bar established on the deck. The bar-tending slave grimaced as Pat gave him a lascivious wink but topped off his beverage all the same.

Otho's daughter likewise was not watching her father drunkenly play lawn darts. She was inside the house, by the freestanding Malm fireplace being entertained by the other guests, one guest in particular. When her father told her they were going to Caesar's capital this was not what she pictured. To be invited to the beating heart of Caesar's great and terrible empire, the nerve center that saw every Legionary man at least once was frighteningly unexpected, at least so soon. When she'd spent most of her life not only free of their dominion but actively opposed to it after only a month Otho's daughter was still not comfortable living among the Legion. When her father extended his invitation to her she initially demurred out of white-knuckle terror, but since he not so much invited her as demanded she accompany him she had no choice but to acquiesce. They'd prepared her for the eventuality that she might be taken to Flagstaff, naturally, but details about what that entailed she either hadn't listened to or hadn't been told to her. At most, she remembered they said not to worry, to relax and to “float downstream,” whatever that meant. Relax, don't worry, and “float downstream” was the central focus of her Juliae training. Words and deeds are two different things, though, and try as she might to relax and float downstream she remained anxious and terrified of what kind of Stygian nightmare Caesar's throne might sit upon.

So it was to her surprise (and relief) to discover how domestic and suburban the destination turned out to be. Rather than a hellscape of suffering and subjugation the manse they arrived at was a perfect pre-war picture of professional class America, faithfully recreated from Time-Life centerfolds and Columbia Broadcasting System's Friday-night lineup. A warm shower greeted them after their long journey and a whole host of idle diversions entertained them before the party. Accompanied by Otho's personal retinue (which thankfully included a few of his daughters' escorts) their journey took a week but they were some of the first guests to arrive, and all through the day her father's peers and their entourages trickled in until the Centurions were so numerous as to form their own Centuriae. Other guests arrived to join in on the festivities, beyond Centurions to caravaneers to celebrities, such as they were in the nascent empire. Some musicians, acrobats, daredevils, comedians, a playwright, dancers, a scattering of actors and actresses, and more than a few people whose claim to fame simply seemed to be their own beauty, as uncommon as it was in the wastes.

And especially to the surprise of Otho's daughter, she found herself among friends. No small number of the Legion's “elites” made Ouroboros their home and Hecate their Goddess. For instance, after her perfume-scented bath in a massive claw-foot tub Otho's daughter was stunned to find herself playing boccie ball on the fake lawn against her childhood friend, touring singer, and Maenad agent Nii’eihii Niitouu. Even as they laughed and played as though not a day had gone by since they were kids Otho did not recognize his daughter's oldest friend, Nii-Nii. In fact, he did not once look at Nii'ehii Niitouu 's face but continued his eternal vigil of her ass and waist and breasts.

Proceeding boccie ball was a lively round of charades over charcuterie with Centurion Corram and _his_ daughter, who bunked with Otho's daughter in Ouroboros. Corram was the Centurion who maintained order in Flagstaff and although he did not live there (it, like everything in Flagstaff, belonged to Caesar) he did keep his recently returned daughter in the house.

“So what did you do that my father didn't? I want to live in a mansion instead of a tent!” Otho's daughter bantered with Corram. Corram's daughter sheepishly blushed.

“It is quite a bit nicer than sharing a bunker with four other girls,” she said and laughed knowingly with Otho's daughter while Corram and Otho laughed less-knowingly but no less happily.

Proceeding charcuterie and charades were a couple rounds of golf on an endless green sea of plastic grass with Centurion Phaestos and his twin sister, who had recently reunited with Phaestos after an extended absence. Having never played before Otho's daughter was a terrible golfer, but her father and Phaestos were well practiced, and Phaestos's twin sister grasped the core concepts quite quickly, although perhaps not surprisingly, considering she was roughly the same height as Phaestos with roughly his same build but in much better shape. Phaestos's sister, for instance, did not have a beer belly. Otho's daughter felt quite comfortable around her.

By then more Centurions had arrived, including Thoros and his three daughters, Ursus and his daughter and sister and niece, Lupos and his two granddaughters, and Adolphus with his mother, who must've been at least seventy but looked younger than him. Thoros offered Otho's daughter a drink but Otho pushed it away and said, “She's not old enough to drink.”

Otho's daughter and the women around her who had seen her drink to the point of projectile vomiting so many times that it was practically a party trick couldn't help but laugh, and their uncles and brothers and fathers and grandfathers all laughed along without a care in the world.

For a few blissful hours Otho's daughter allowed herself to relax, truly relax, and have a little fun, for the first time since leaving Ouroboros. She ate of succulent meats and sweet mutfruits, she limbo-ed, she gossiped in the bathroom with her friends, she flirted a little with some handsome guests. All the Centurions told well-rehearsed tales of former glories and drank. The Legion might be at war, the Legion was always at war, for what was the Legion without war, but clearly these men were not. They'd killed ant queens and deathclaws and molechs and supermutants in their time but now they were down to ogres and maxulaw and łéʼétsoh pitsooti. Otho's daughter found it all quite a bit sad, really. The Centurions had doughy, soft bodies, tortured and tenderized by decades of fighting, of violence and bloodshed and horror, of legacies that would leave hideous, jagged scars all across the land for generations to come. Many of them were missing eyes, or hands. Covered in shiny scars crisscrossing leathered skin. Old men. This was supposed to be a war council. It was more of a convalescent home.

More guests arrived. The eternally tardy, those that had been held up, and the more fashionable party attendees. And there was no Centurion more fashionable than Centurion Janus. The most sought-after clothing in the wasteland was Hawaiian (sometimes called Aloha) shirts. These Hawaiian shirts served as formal wear for fancy events. The more fabric one's Hawaiian shirt had, the more important that person was, which led some very important-feeling men with means to stitch as much Aloha fabric together as they could and make a huge, billowing tee that looked more like a mumu or a toga. Centurion Otho, for example, had a toga with five different fabrics stitched together, a blue shirt with an orchid print, one white shirt covered in leis of all different color, a lighter blue shirt decorated with German cars, a green shirt with surfboards, and one red shirt with palm trees. For many Centurions of the Bull Pen these Hawaiian togas had the extra advantage of disguising the weight they'd put on since they took cushy jobs as Caesar's bureaucrats. If a man really wanted to be fashionable, he'd top off his dress with a big straw hat and use cherry cola to secret his alcohol. When he was Legate the Burned Man had unofficially outlawed caffeinated sodas. While Caesar never made a decision one way or another about pop the taboo against carbonated beverages didn't follow Graham into Wi kaʼi la. Only the bravest or most reckless might mix themselves whiskey and flat Nuka Cola, or rum and Sunset Sarsparilla, lit by tiki torches as they stood around on salvaged carpets of Astroturf boasting of past glories.

By far the best dressed at any meeting of the Bull Pen was Centurion Janus, also known as the Death-Dealer or sometimes Old Two-Face, on account of what a snake he was. In his later years after he retired from the Legion Janus would call himself “Baron Saturday” and style himself after Baron Samedi, with a fine silk vest, trousers, dark glasses, and a top hat. The only apparel he kept from his days as Centurion Janus was the bone cane he himself topped with a gaudy quartz doorknob. At The Bullpen's parties he paired his scepter with an Aloha mumu, as was the style, but it had a gold lamé breast and animal-print collar and sleeves. Over that he wore a ratty black faux-fur coat. Around his neck was a metal chain plated in gold, and on one of his fingers the 1970 Super Bowl IV ring that once belonged to hall of famer Curley Culp (but with all the diamonds pried out), which he took as a trophy after the capture of Yuma.

Unlike the other men of the Bull Pen, the Daughters of Hecate had no records of Janus before he became a Centurion. He had no known tribal affiliation, and it was unclear when he started his service. The common assumption was that he changed his name to curry political favor and that his old name was counted among the countless legionaries whose records abruptly ended around the time he was named Centurion. But without a record of the name change it was impossible to tell. For all anybody knew his mother or sister or daughter or wife was in Ouroboros, and all they had to do was see him and the mystery would be solved, but that would never come to pass.

When Janus arrived at the party it was, naturally, a scene. The band stopped playing so the Centurion's own musicians could herald his arrival, accompanied by a color guard that twirled Legion standards and danced gaily to the beat. Of all the party guests who gawked at him and his entourage only Otho's daughter did not clap. The color drained from her face, instead. She was not delighted by the merrymaking and amusement of such an outlandish man. Truly, the only Centurion of the Bull Pen with any color or vibrance. No, Otho's daughter was not amused. Nor was she scared, like she was of Janus before he emerged spectacularly before her. When all the dancers stopped and the doors flung open to reveal the Centurion in all his bejeweled glory, Otho's daughter was overwhelmed with anger. Furious, righteous rage. The kind of malice that can only ever be earned.

It was Nii-Nii who brought her back to Earth, naturally. With no desire to stoke the Centurion's ego the artist opted **not** to watch his entrance and instead shared a cocktail with some equally-tired friends, but then suddenly the music stopped and the doors flew open and for a moment the party was silent and a cold chill ran down the song bird's spine because at that exact moment she remembered with perfect clarity why she hated Centurion Janus with all her heart and would never, ever forgive him no matter how long she or he may live. And then she thought of Otho's daughter.

She rushed to the unknown girl's side and gently directed her out of the house the way only she could. They found a quiet spot out on the lawn, by the bomb shelter. They cried together. For the first time in a long time the two of them let themselves reflect on what a truly, wickedly awful and unforgiving place the world is. How scared they were. That at that very moment they were in the metaphorical Heart of Darkness, the epicenter of sin and depravity that rippled ever outwards, each concentric circle bigger and more grotesque than the last. No amount of white paint or blocky chairs or fake grass, no amount of golf or Parcheesi or other delights could hide the monstrous crimes these men had committed, against the world and against these two women in particular. Nii-Nii never lost sight of the mission, though.

“If you break kayfabe and do everything you ever dreamed of doing to that man right now you will jeopardize the operation and threaten everything the Goddess has dreamed of, possibly dooming not just our friends and loved ones at this party but the entire world; but if you do try to kill him I will have your back until we're dead,” Nii-Nii explained as she pressed the carbon-fiber knife into her friend's hand. They returned to the party before someone went looking for them.

Otho's daughter was not satisfied. She heard and she understood Nii-Nii's reasons for rubbing elbows with a man who personally did her specific and acute harm, but now she wanted to hear everyone else's excuse. And to that end, she embarked on a personal quest to ask every single one of them. The answers were easily forthcoming.

“What do you think of Centurion Janus?” or even, simply, “Janus?” was all she had to ask, and stories and opinions came pouring out of such intensity and diversity that by the end of the night no one, not his friends and loved ones, not even the Goddess, not even the man _himself_ had a more complete picture of the Death-Dealer than Otho's daughter.

Janus styled himself as “in” with the frumentarii, not because he was one but because he informed to them regularly and vociferously. In fact, he was such a reliable and exhaustive source of information that the frumentarii were once personally reprimanded by Caesar for not seeking out more diverse sources of intelligence. At the time, nearly three-fourths of their internal Legion Intel came directly from the Centurion. There was a long list of legionaries whose careers and even lives were ended by Old Two-Face, typically to his own benefit. Everybody knew this. It was no secret among the Bull Pen what a gossip the man was, nor was it a secret that all alcohol enjoyed at their soirees was provided by him. He'd maneuvered his way into authority over all contraband in his cohort, thanks in part to how many of his men he'd crucified for smuggling contraband after ordering them to smuggle contraband. All liquor in the territory he protected went to him and he sold it for a handsome profit to his peers.

Janus had fucked men over, he fucked tribes over, he was a liar, a snake, and a scoundrel. Otho's daughter was not alone in her loathing, it was very quickly made clear to her. Plenty of party-goers were happy to show her the old scars that Janus's duplicitous double dealing had dealt them. They hinted darkly at secret schemes of their own. Others loved him for these very qualities. Some had happily laundered their own intrigue through him, kept their hands clean while he discreetly disposed of their rivals. Lots of guests were scared of him, they kissed his ass in fear of becoming the next targets of his forked tongue. A few sophisticates dismissed him. Without being personally aggrieved by the Death-Dealer but aware of his reputation they kept him at arms length and otherwise considered him more of a curiosity, just another sideshow in the carnival that was the Legion. In her father's opinion, any animosity between them in the past was irrelevant, especially any harm done before Otho was made a Legion man. If anything, her father seemed to feel like he owed Janus for fucking him and his family and his people over, since it obviously led to him becoming one of the most powerful men in the wasteland today.

Above all though, regardless of any opinion of him, his loyalty to Caesar was unquestionable. He lived to serve his God, and so long as his conspiracies inconvenienced the men beneath him and not the man above him he was unlikely to suffer any consequence for them and in fact, he never did. When Caesar formally approved of the Bull Pen’s parties by attending one, he and Janus shared a private drink of pre-war America’s finest bourbon. The contents of their conversation followed Janus to the grave. Caesar was the one man Janus would never rat out.

The last guest that Otho's daughter sought in her quest was Janus himself. While her father played lawn darts outside she gained the Death-Dealer's audience, a hundred different thoughts and feelings swirling in her head and one sharp knife on her person. Nii-Nii kept a close eye on her as she probed the party for Intel on her target, and swept to her side when she arrived at the focus of her investigation, prepared for whatever may come. All of the stories and rumors and opinions she'd been given did nothing to help her when face-to-face with Janus himself. All the greater understanding she'd labored to accrue meant nothing when he was living and breathing and speaking right next to her, as flesh-and-blood as she was and only a little taller. If anything, everything she'd learned only made it harder to see him in front of her as he really was. She could barely hear the words he spoke, as engrossed as she was with the color of his teeth, the fray of his jacket, the swirl of his ear. His legend was so out-sized and horrifying it was impossible that it could all be contained in this one creature. The weight of his terrible legacy should, Otho's daughter thought, bear down on him with such force that he should be crushed into a diamond, like the fake one that topped his cane. Yet here he was, standing next to her, laughing and smiling and, as always, putting on a little one-man show.

“And who is this fetching creature?” he suddenly directed his attention at her, snapping her out of her fugue.

“That's Otho's daughter,” someone said, “One of them,” and for a moment she saw something in his eyes, a flash of recognition and, she thought, guilt. Fear, too, maybe. She could've imagined it, but for a second it looked like the Death-Dealer was thrown. But only for a second.

“Well, I'm pleased to report you look nothing like him,” he quipped and kissed the hand she did not realize she gave him. Their audience laughed, and Otho's daughter laughed along, mechanically, without taking her eyes off Janus. She managed to draw another nervous glance from the Centurion but he quickly regained his composure and went right on back to being the life of the party. It didn't matter. Otho's daughter knew for sure she wasn't seeing things. She knew she scared him.

She left the party satisfied, with a deeper understanding of the night's events than any of her peers. These regular parties that the Centurions threw were meant to be a break from politics, a departure from the war councils they once were, a perversion of the cutthroat business of being a Centurion. What they'd created was so much worse, a nightmarish abattoir of backstabbing and back-patting and palace intrigue that took infinitely more effort than a simple meeting might. Of course Caesar didn’t mind the Bull Pen’s parties. They were as stiff and staid as any autocrat could dream of and, in actuality, by his own design. There was nothing stopping him from collecting reports and sending orders to these men individually. He wanted to bring them together, had placed each man carefully in their post for that purpose. At some point he was going to have to transition the Legion from an army to a nation. The Centurions who massed with him on the Colorado assumed (if they assumed anything at all) that once Caesar held New Vegas he’d name them all senators in his Empire, but Caesar had already built his own quorum of mush-heads and sycophants. They called themselves the Bull Pen.

Save the clever few who had maneuvered themselves into their cushy posts like Janus, Caesar made sure his empire’s future political class were all adult-sized babies who wouldn’t challenge him, but still presented an image of authority. Most of the Centurions serving under him at the front were going to die. Most of the men serving under him at the front were going to die.

So was Caesar, but he didn’t plan for that. None of the men he’d set up to serve as his government would ever challenge him, but just as they didn’t understand his ideology they had no true loyalty to his dream. And Caesar was sick. Very sick. Barring some sort of miracle, his campaign in the Mojave would be his last. And as soon as he died, the Bull Pen were going to tear apart the massive swath of land they currently kept unified for their living God in desperate, ill-conceived bids to serve as his successor, and maybe help themselves to a little of that good living god action. Otho's daughter could see it in their little piggy eyes. The unification of the southwest wasteland, the brave new utopia little Eddie Sallow had conceived would be carved up, burned, and obliterated by these brave and loyal warriors. The safety and stability that the peoples of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado had enjoyed for only a brief decade would be undone in a matter of months, or even weeks depending on how fast word of Caesar's demise traveled. The wasteland would fall into bloody ruin again, neighbor against neighbor and only the cruelest and least scrupulous surviving. Caesar was too short-sighted and too selfish to consider a future that didn’t include himself. Only the Daughters planned for that eventuality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Caesar's adult-sized babies is a Hark! a Vagrant reference  
A little peek inside the creative process, originally my idea was that when Otho and Patroclus are playing lawn darts slaves are the targets but then I decided it was too interesting and it would really be more depraved that the party is perfectly wholesome and boring. They're horrible monsters, and they aren't even fun


End file.
